Dr. Shonni Silverberg ’76 and her husband, John M. Shapiro ’74, recently donated two million dollars to the Jewish and Israel Studies Program in honor of Assistant Professor of Religion Jeremy Zwelling.

This donation, to be dispersed over several years, will ensure future Jewish Studies positions at Wesleyan. It will also help bring new assets to the University such as influential speakers from Israel and Palestine.

“This generous gift by Shonni and John assures that Jewish studies will continue to flourish and be a permanent part of our curriculum,” Zwelling said. “Keeping continuity is very important in the goal of institutionalizing the Jewish Studies program.”

In her time here, Silverberg took several classes with Professor Zwelling, including a two-semester frosh program and a class on Utopian Societies, co-taught by the Protestant Pastor of the time.

According to Zwelling, Silverberg was a vocal, energetic, and wonderfully bright student during her time at Wesleyan as a pre-med. She often worked at the Middletown Daycare Center and she resided in Hewitt 10, Nicolson 6 and Williams Street along with Shapiro. By staying in touch with the community, Shapiro has seen much change, he said, especially in his former dorm WestCo.

“There was no real sense of a Jewish community on campus [when we went to Wesleyan],” Silverberg said. “We wanted a way to mutually show our support while also enhancing Jewish studies.”

Since his arrival in 1967, Professor Zwelling has turned a virtually non-existent Jewish Studies department into a thriving program offering classes in Jewish religion, history, culture and the Hebrew language. He also helped create an interdisciplinary program that provides a Jewish and Israel Studies certificate.

“I was very glad to find out that Wesleyan had a Jewish Studies Program,” said Jessica Firshein ’05 who is currently working towards her Jewish Studies certificate. The program also has a personal value for her.

“Because I’m Jewish I’m very interested in studying Judaism from other perspectives,” she said.

Firshein spent this past spring in Israel in a town called Be’er Sheva. She said that traveling was a great way to actively learn about culture, ethnicity and religion.

“We have tremendous confidence in Jeremy and we felt that our gifts would enable him to fulfill his vision for nurturing the program,” said Shapiro.

Zwelling was also in charge of the spring semester program in Israel, which was created in 1976. The program, which at its height included twenty to thirty students per semester, sent students to Jerusalem where they were able to study in areas like the anthropology of religion and attend seminars with distinguished Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Although this program thrived in the 1990s, especially during the Oslo Peace Accord, it is now in its third year of suspension due to escalating violence in the area.