Welcome to the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. We are the only academic program offering courses in Jewish Studies in all of western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio. At the University of Pittsburgh, students, may construct a self-designed undergraduate major in Jewish Studies, complete a certificate program in Jewish Studies, study the Hebrew language in order to attain full conversational proficiency or take a number of interesting and challenging courses that will expand and complement their studies while also satisfying one of the University's Disciplinary Approaches requirement.

Our Program draws its faculty from the Department of Religious Studies and from colleagues in other units in the School of Arts and Sciences. The Program offers instruction to five hundred students annually from courses included in a roster of more than forty offerings described elsewhere in this site. The demographic profile of our students reflects the broad and diverse character of the student body at the University. Significantly, more than seventy-five per cent of Jewish Studies classes satisfy one of the requirements in the College of Arts and Sciences, further attesting to the broad and integrative nature of the Program.

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute , sponsored by the College of General Studies, regularly lists our courses in their catalog. Additionally, faculty members associated with the Program have been active in numerous community educational projects as resource persons and as instructors. The Jewish Studies Program fulfills an important community role by regularly sponsoring a number of public programs on campus by distinguished scholars and creative artists invited from American and international universities. Topics range across the full spectrum of Jewish life and culture. The Program has also sponsored major symposia on campus focused on important historical and contemporary topics.

Faculty and student research projects in Jewish Studies at the University of Pittsburgh are facilitated by the excellent Judaica collection at the Hillman Library. Over the years, University of Pittsburgh bibliographers have developed an impressive collection of monographs and serials that has enabled our community to pursue a number of creative research programs. In addition to the publications of our faculty and the research projects undertaken by our undergraduate students, the availability of these resources at the University of Pittsburgh has promoted graduate work in this field, too. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the Program, dissertations on aspects of Jewish Studies have been written in the Departments of Anthropology, French & Italian Language and Literature, German Languages and Literatures, Hispanic Languages and Literatures, History, Religious Studies, Sociology and Theater Arts in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.