Fairfield University awarded $50,000 grant for Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies by Schnurmacher Foundation | Press Releases

The Adolph & Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation has awarded $50,000 to Fairfield University's Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies for the center's 2005-06 program year. The grant will provide ongoing operational support for the center's activities. The Foundation has supported the center's programming since 1997.

"We are so thankful that the Schnurmacher Foundation continues to support the Bennett Center. Many of the Center's accomplishments have been made possible by the Foundation's on-going commitment to Judaic Studies and its programs for the university and general communities," said Ellen Umansky, PhD., director of the Judaic Studies Program and the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor of Judaic Studies. "Fred and Janet Plotkin, the secretary and president of the Foundation, have become true and dear friends of the Judaic Studies program, as have their children - Amanda, Caroline and Jonathan."

The crucial funding provided by the Schnurmacher Foundation, as well as other supporters, has helped to make several Judaic Studies programs possible at Fairfield University, including various student activities, a Holocaust Remembrance Service, library purchases, newsletter publications and more.

The Foundation's support also has made an annual Schnurmacher Lectureship in Judaic Studies possible. This past year's lecture, on November 9, featured Yossi Klein Halevi, contributing editor and correspondent for The New Republic and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. Halevi is known for his regular contributions to the Los Angeles Times on Israeli affairs, and occasional pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

He is an Associate Fellow of the Shalem Center, an institute for Jewish social thought and Israeli public policy in Jerusalem.

The Adolph & Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation, Inc., based in New York City, was founded in 1977. Focusing on New York City and Fairfield County, the foundation gives donations to a wide array of organizations in the arts, social services, human services, health care, and education.

The Bennett Center was founded in 1994 with an initial endowment of $1.5 million from Carl and Dorothy Bennett of Greenwich that went to the Judaic Studies academic program and to create the center.

The progressive mission of the program, as articulated in the original endowment proposal, was to create "a multifaceted program that studies Judaism as an entity unto itself, not one which studies it solely in its relationship to Christianity. We believe it is highly important that Catholic students have exposure to and contact with Jewish ideas, culture and thinking." The Judaic Studies Program and the Bennett Center have also received tremendous financial support from numerous individuals through personal contributions and gifts by joining "'Friends of Judaic Studies."