Thesis and Grad Schools

My original drafts of my statement of purpose essays started off with my experience in Israel and how seeing the comparative perspective of American Jewish History intrigued me to study this field in graduate school. I spent a lot of time focusing on my relationships with the Israelis and the American Jewish kids at Rothberg. How it was incredible to see such a diverse group of American Jews with different expressions of their Jewish identity that reflected the complexities of American Jewish history.

Then I really thought about the real reason for my interest behind it- what made me so attentive to the details and after an (unsuccessful) interview with Brandeis, it hit me that my professor, Sarah Schmidt, had a huge influence on me with her seminar. I've written about it several times in this blog and I can say that it's really changed my focus for graduate school. I always thought I'd do Holocaust but after doing some work with Professor Bankier at Yad Vashem in an academic setting, not museum, I realized that the Holocaust field is basically dried up, all the sources and ideas are exhausted. It's rather disappointing for me because it's been my "baby" for a long time but it doesn't mean that I can't teach Holocaust in my future job. It's just that there isn't really any new idea out there that'll shake up the academia. So I decided that I want to switch over to American Jewish history which is still relatively small but it's growing to be an exciting field. I doubt that it'll be in a same position as the Holocaust because there are limits- many of the scholars are in the US, not all over the world. Of course, that also creates a problem for me as I look for schools to apply to because there aren't that many professors in this subject. I need an American Jewish history professor, not just an American history professor where I can do Jews on the side.

Nevertheless, the limitations haven't deterred me from applying. I'm actually very positive about the places- Michigan, NYU, and Penn. Everyone recommends me to NYU and that's uh, something and I feel as if they should also say that in their letters if they're writing for me. We'll see how it all goes.

On another note, I did my thesis presentation today. I told my group that the biggest challenge of writing my thesis was overcoming the fact that I got too close to my subjects as a Jew, like I empathized with my sources and not looking at things objecively. Coming back to Israel was very hard for me as a historian because I felt as if my experience turned American Jewish history upside down with the Israeli comparative perspective and I didn't know where to start with my topic. Eventually I just gave up and said that I'd just do a focus on a community that's convinent (Rochester, NY). I discovered through the process how complex American Jewish history is and the kind of sophiscated thinking it requires and heck, I like this. I definitely contribute to my experience in Israel for challenging me to think differently and more broadly.

So it's quite amazing how my experience in Israel changed and affected my decisions in regards to graduate schools.