GWSS and History professor Lisa Heineman contributed a thoughtful piece to a special issue of Perspectives on the theme of Justice.

In the article Teaching Judaism and Social Justice, Heineman asks "What do you do when teaching “Jews, Judaism, and Social Justice” for the first time? To students who have a purely intuitive understanding of social justice, who may or may not know anything about Judaism or Jewish history and life, and who are anxious to get out of the classroom and into the community—which is inaccessible due to COVID-19?

This was the situation I faced in spring of 2022 at my large midwestern public university. I began the semester assuming the current iteration of the course would be a stopgap. Next time, I told myself, I’d organize it around a community engagement project. I ended the semester thankful for perhaps the most rewarding teaching experience of my nearly thirty-year career."

Find the article here