Grad Student Research and Resources

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, a post-doctoral research institution located in Center City, annulaly brings eighteen to twenty-five distinguished scholars to Penn as fellows to pursue scholarly research on selected themes. Every year several fellows teach courses at Penn, and both graduate students and faculty participate in the Katz Center's weekly seminars. Graduate students may also apply for carrels to work at the Katz Center, which is home to one of America's greates research libraries in Judaica and Hebraica and includes a Genizah collection, many manuscripts, and early printings. For the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (Katz Center), click here.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is home to the permanent exhibition, "Canaan and Ancient Israel," the largest exhibition in America dedicated to the archaeology of ancient Israel and neighboring lands, and which features hundreds of rare artifacts from about 3000 to 586 BCE, excavated by Penn archaeologists in Israelm Jordan, and Lebanon. The Museum collection also contains very rich holdings of cuniform tablets and Mesopotamian and Egyptian artifacts, and its library is especially strong in Biblical archaeology and related studies. For the University Museum, click here.

The Law School annually hosts the Gruss Visiting Professorship in Talmudic Law, which brings a distinguished scholar to campus to teach courses in Talmudic and Jewish Law. The Biddle Law library also contains significant holdings in Jewish legal literature. For the Law School, click here.

The Van Pelt Library contains a rich collection of holdings in all areas of Jewish history, literature and culture. The Library also houses a valuable reference collection in the Judaica and Ancient Near East Reading Room, and is home as well to the Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish Music Archive, the largest collection in the world of Yiddish music, including recordings and songbooks. Penn's library holdings in Judaica altogether contain more than 350,000 volumes? -- one of the largest collections of its kind. For Van Pelt Library, click here.

The Jewish Studies Program sponsors numerous lectures, seminars, and other programs, and also coordinates the Jewish Studies Graduate Student Organization, which sponsors its own programs from working lunches with visiting scholars and fellows from the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Graduate students in Jewish Studies at Penn constitute a strong intellectual community.