MPhil in Jewish Studies

The MPhil is a taught master’s course, designed to teach the methods, sources and languages required for more specialised research within Jewish Studies.

You will be required to complete 6 terms of language study in the same language. You may choose to study either Modern Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew or Yiddish at elementary, intermediate or advanced level.

In addition, you will be required to select four courses from a range of options. The options of this course, which vary from year to year, must be selected from those on offer.

Options are subject to availability of teaching each year but might include:

• Septuagint and Related Studies
• Introduction to Rabbinic Texts
• Modern Jewish History
• The Emergence of Modern Religious Movements in Judaism
• The Religion of Israel
• The Holocaust: From History to Memory
• Written Culture in the Medieval Jewish World
• On Sherd and Papyrus: Jews in ancient documents from Hellenistic and early Roman Egypt
• Main Themes in Israeli Society and Politics
• Modern Hebrew Literature
• Key Themes in Jewish Medieval Thought.

You will also write a dissertation of up to 30,000 words.

The degree course is intensive and is based on small classes, seminars, tutorials and close faculty-student contact. 

Teaching typically consists of a weekly one hour tutorial or class for each option. Language courses typically consist of 5 hours of class teaching per week. In addition students can expect to meet with their thesis supervisor twice a term.

Attendance

Resources to support your study

You will have access to the Leopold Muller Memorial Library at the Clarendon Institute which has a collection specialising mainly in the areas of Jewish history and Hebrew literature. It comprises some 90,000 Hebrew volumes and pamphlets and an archive of 400,000 newspaper cuttings mostly from the Hebrew press. A significant addition to the holdings was the library of Gedalyah Elkoshi (1910-1988), a collection containing some 17,000 books, and constituting a richly varied library in Jewish studies and Hebrew literature. The library also holds a collection of more than 900 Yizkor Books, the largest unified and open-access collection of this literature in Europe. Yizkor Books - memorials to Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust - are indispensable sources of information regarding Jews in Eastern and Central Europe.

The library contains several other important collections: the Montefiore Book Collection, one of the most significant collections of its kind in the UK and a major resource for the study of modern European Jewish history; the Coppenhagen Collection, comprising nearly 30,000 books relating to the history of Dutch Jewry from the early 17th century until the end of the 20th century; the Rabbinic library donated by Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs, in particular the sections on Kabbalah, Mysticism and Hasidism. The section on Halakhah, containing Responsa from early to modern times, provides an exceptional resource for the study of Rabbinic Judaism and is probably the only one of its kind in Europe. The Western Hebrew Library, collected by Sir Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling for the New West End Synagogue, has nearly two thousand books, the majority 17th and 18th century Hebrew prints. The Hugo Gryn Library and Archive, the Loewe Pamphlet Collection and the Loewe Archive, are important resources for the study of Anglo-Jewry.

The main sections of the library are: Bible, Bibliography, History of the Jewish People, Holocaust, Israel Judaism, Modern Hebrew Literature, Yizkor Books, and Zionism. The library is situated next to the common room for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, where tea and coffee are available and staff and students can meet.

The Bodleian Library has unrivalled collections of Hebrew and Yiddish manuscripts and printed books. You will also benefit from the Nizami Ganjavi Library part of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, which contains Biblical, Jewish, Islamic and other Asian and Middle Eastern works.

You will have access to the University's centrally provided electronic resources, the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies' IT Officer, and other bibliographic, archive or material sources as appropriate to the topic. There is a computing room for the use of graduate students in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, as well as a common room where tea and coffee are available and staff and students can meet.

Supervision

The allocation of graduate supervision for this course is the responsibility of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and it is not always possible to accommodate the preferences of incoming graduate students to work with a particular member of staff. Under exceptional circumstances a supervisor may be found outside the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

Most students have the opportunity to meet individually with their supervisor at least twice a term.

Assessment

You will be required to pass a qualifying examination in the language chosen at the end of the first year of the course, unless exempted.

Most option courses are assessed by two essays to be handed in at the end of the vacation following the term in which they were taught, though for certain courses there is a timed examination at the end of the third term of the second year. The language studied will also be assessed by a timed examination at the end of Trinity term (summer term) of the final year of the course. Finally, a dissertation will be assessed. Conferral of the degree requires that students pass all components of the course.

Further information on the course, and the examination process, can be found in the course handbook via the course webpage on the faculty's website.

Graduate destinations

Asian and Middle Eastern studies graduates have found employment in many diverse fields including business, finance law, civil service, journalism, government and industry.

Many graduates have also undertaken further research into subjects linked with Asian and Middle Eastern studies and have pursued successful careers in the academic world, education and in museums.

Asian and Middle Eastern studies alumni are spread throughout the world, and enjoying success in a variety of professional, academic and business fields.

College preference

The following colleges accept students on the MPhil in Jewish Studies: