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Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Dropsie University Complex
WTP2 Mike Reali 06b.jpg
the original location of Dropsie University
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is located in Philadelphia
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is located in Pennsylvania
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is located in the US
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
Location Broad and York Streets
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Coordinates Coordinates: 39°59′20.2632″N 75°9′19.0548″W / 39.988962000°N 75.155293000°W / 39.988962000; -75.155293000
Area 2 acres (0.81 ha)
Built 1909
Architect Lewis F. Pilcher & W.T. Tachau
Architectural style Beaux Arts, Renaissance
NRHP Reference # 75001661
Added to NRHP January 17, 1975

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (CAJS or "the Katz Center") at the University of Pennsylvania is the world's first and only institution exclusively dedicated to post-doctoral research on Jewish Civilization. It is located at 420 Walnut Street between S. 4th and S. 5th Streets in the Old City, Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia. The center is directed by Professor Steven Weitzman.

The institution now known as the Katz Center was founded in 1907 as the Dropsie College of Hebrew and Cognate Learning and finally as Dropsie University. It was named after its benefactor, Moses Aaron Dropsie (1821–1905), a wealthy man whose father was Jewish and mother was Christian but who self-identified as Jewish from the age of 14. Dropsie willed his entire fortune to "the promotion of and instruction in the Hebrew and cognate languages and their respective literatures."

Dropsie granted more than 200 Ph.D.s between its inception and its closing as a degree-granting institution in 1986. Dropsie was also the publisher of the Jewish Quarterly Review, which was at the time the most respected journal on the subject.

The faculty during the Dropsie era included scholars from outside the United States, including Benzion Netanyahu, who came from Jerusalem with his young sons, Yonatan (Yoni) and Benjamin (Bibi), who there had their first true exposures to American culture, which would become a touchstone for later interactions with the American public for Bibi.

Although no longer a degree-granting college, it became the Annenberg Research Institute after its 1986 closing and turned into one of the country's most noted interdisciplinary post-doctoral fellowship programs. It merged with the University of Pennsylvania in 1993, after which the institution was renamed the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. It continues to publish the Jewish Quarterly Review, the oldest continuously published Judaic studies journal in English.

Today, CAJS supports approximately 24 fellows each year who conduct their research at the University of Pennsylvania. Each fellow is given their own downtown Philadelphia office and meets with the others at weekly seminars. The papers they produce are published by the University of Pennsylvania Press at the conclusion of their term in the program.


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