About the Department

What is the Multidisciplinary Department of Jewish Studies?

The Multidisciplinary Department of Jewish Studies is an academic framework that enables its students to take a wide variety of courses from all of the departments and fields that are included within the Faculty of Jewish Studies: Bible, Talmud, Jewish History, Hebrew and Semitic Languages, Hebrew Literature, Yiddish and Ladino, Jewish Philosophy, Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Jewish Art, and Middle Eastern Studies. The department allows students to create individualized curricula, which best reflect their particular interests within the field of Jewish Studies.

So why study in the Multidisciplinary Department of Jewish Studies?

The Faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University is the largest and most varied of its kind in the world and includes nine disciplinary departments that specialize in the different fields included in Jewish studies. All of these are open to students of the Multidisciplinary Department, which breaks down the traditional boundaries between the different fields of study and brings them together in a program that is rich in content and unique in its variety. Each student in the department is guided in their studies by a senior academic advisor.

Internationally-Recognized Faculty

BIU’s Faculty of Jewish Studies is honored to host the best academic scholars in the Jewish Studies world. Students in the Multidisciplinary Department have their pick of courses in various departments, where they study closely with top experts in each field.

Study structure in the multidisciplinary department of Jewish Studies:

  1. A major in jewish studie, Or a double major in Jewish studiea and another field. The students can choose an introductory and advanced courses in three or four of the nine departments within the Faculty, as well as from a wide range of elective courses.
  2. Cramim - the Jewish Studies Honors Program -
    Cramim is a new interdisciplinary honors program within the Faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Cramim is an opportunity for outstanding students to immerse themselves in areas such as Jewish history, culture, literature, language, and philosophy. Unlike most Israeli academic majors, Cramim enables students to develop a deep and holistic understanding of their chosen field of study by also exposing them to subjects, texts, and thinkers from related disciplines. Cramim offers eligible students full tuition scholarships.
  3. Jewish Culture - hybrid program - The Jewish Culture program is a hybrid and structured program that allows the student to attain a broad view of Jewish culture and of the issues that are relevant in Israel and in world Jewry, through the lens of Jewish Studies.