A Year Unlike Any Other

Greetings from Knoxville, Tennessee! This year has been unlike any other in our history here at the University of Tennessee. Like most of the country, COVID-19 has had an incredible impact on our campus. Many of our classes are now being taught online though we do have number of classes that are being offered in person as well. Our lectures and programs are being held online making them more accessible to the wider public. We had unfortunate outcomes like the cancelation of our summer program to Israel and the cancelation of some speakers in the spring. However, on the positive, our online courses this fall have allowed us to reach students outside of Knoxville and to do some innovative projects.

My own experiences with COVID-19 and the classroom have been interesting. Last spring I was teaching a class to advanced undergraduates and graduate students on Public Health during the Holocaust. The class is part of my ongoing research that tracks the spread of disease in ghettos during the Holocaust and the ways in which Jews tried to use public health measures to improve their chances of survival. We were tracking the spread of this new mysterious disease in China and talking about the types of public health measures being taken to contain the disease. We had academic discussions in January and February about the ethics of quarantines and how they can be positive and negative. This class that in most time periods would seem a very obscure topic became extremely relevant as COVID-19 arrived in the United States and began to spread. We had been looking at oral histories of Holocaust survivors who had been experiencing hunger and disease in the ghettos and tools and methods for analyzing those testimonies when students had to return home suddenly to isolate. Unable to meet in our classroom, I had students keep diaries of their own experiences and analyze their own testimonies.

I would like to note that there have been some great positives this year to report: the number of Judaic Studies majors and minors have been steadily increasing, our Hebrew program has been expanding thanks to the generosity of Lea and Allen Orwitz, we have had a number of undergraduates students able to engage in research projects including being recognized for their excellence, and we are looking forward to a new course on Modern Israel to begin next spring due to a grant from the Israel Institute. I hope you are all staying safe and healthy!

Sincerely,
Helene Sinnreich
Director