New Jewish Studies Requirements Less Restrictive

Yeshiva University undergraduate students recently received an e-mail detailing the updated Jewish History and Bible requirements. Specifically, the new guidelines afford students greater flexibility in fulfilling the requirements.

For Bible, the previous guidelines dictated that each student fulfill four Bible requirements – one Introduction to Bible class, two “text-based” courses (Nevi’im Acharonim/ Ketubim), and one other Bible course, often “theme-based.” The updated guidelines also require each student to complete four Bible courses; however, instead of two “text-based” courses, students are only required to take one. For the last two courses, students can now take a “theme-based” Bible course, a Jewish philosophy course, or another “text-based” course.

For Jewish History, the previous guidelines required each student to fulfill two Jewish History surveys from different time periods. Though students must still fulfill two Jewish History courses under the new system, only one of those courses must be a survey while the second can be completed with any Jewish History course, survey or not.

According to Rabbi Akiva Koenigsberg, Associate Registrar, the changes were implemented due to student complaints that the old requirements were too restrictive. “Students wanted to be able to take other courses in these departments, and were unable to under the old system. The new one is much less restrictive.”