Panel talks of Jewish life abroad

There's more to the idea of a Jewish "community" than Penn Hillel, three visiting scholars said last week. The students, hailing from Italy, Spain and England, discussed the nature of Jewish life in their respective countries at a forum Thursday. The discussion at the Ware College House -- which was sponsored by the Jewish Renaissance Project, a group seeking to promote Jewish learning and spark increased involvement in Jewish communal activities -- attracted about two dozen students, many of whom were interested in traveling abroad in the near future. Katrin Tenenbaum, Adam Sutcliffe and Angel Badillos -- all fellows at Penn's Center for Judaic Studies -- facilitated the discussion and answered questions from students interested in Jewish culture and traveling abroad. Tenenbaum described Jewish life at Italian universities as limited. Institutions of higher education there do not offer a Jewish studies program like the one offered here at Penn, he said. "There is a very lively cultural Jewish life but it is organized in the community," Tenenbaum explained. Sutcliffe, although not Jewish, alluded to his interest in Jewish poetry in Spain. His interest in Jewish culture resulted from his theological study of Jews in the Bible. Sutcliffe belongs to the "Poetry and Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Jewry" group, one of two groups that comprise the Center for Judaic Studies. He contrasted the smaller current Jewish community with the architectural reminders -- like the synagogues in Toledo, Spain -- of what the communities once were. Sutcliffe candidly talked about the small number of Jewish students in Spain and the occasional difficulty of finding Kosher food. Badillos, the third speaker, belongs to the "Enlightenment and European Society" group of the Center for Judaic Studies. He spoke of the small but diverse communities of British Jews, who comprise less than 1 percent of the nation's total population. Badillos lamented the "reticence of the Anglo-Jewish community." The Jews there, he added, identify themselves as English first and Jews second. Turning to Jewish life at English universities, Badillos noted that the schools have campus organizations which serve similar functions to American Hillel Houses. "The discussion helped me to see what Jewish life was like in other countries," Wharton sophomore Cory Perlstein said. The JRP is sponsoring an upcoming November 22 lecture by Dennis Prager, Los Angeles radio personality and famous author. The group presents a number of student-faculty seminars throughout the semester and maintains a World Wide Web site at http://www.jrp.com.