Make the long conversation possible.
For twenty-five years, Jewish Studies at Vassar has made a space — rigorous, hospitable, never doctrinaire — for the study of Jewish texts, histories, languages, and arts. Your gift sustains the Program's faculty-led travel seminars, public lectures, language teaching, and the Sefer Torah restoration, and it underwrites scholarships that put these opportunities within reach of every student.
A Vassar education that included a Jewish Studies travel seminar in Spain — reading sources in situ, meeting scholars, eating together at the end of a long day — was a gift I will carry for life. I want every Vassar student to have that chance.— A recent travel-seminar participant
Gifts of every size matter. A monthly recurring gift of $25 supports our growing student library in the Fishman Seminar room; an annual gift of $1,800 underwrites one student's place on a faculty-led travel seminar; a major gift can endow a named fund in perpetuity. Every dollar designated DA059 — Jewish Studies reaches the Program directly.
A gift directly to the Program.
Donations go directly to Vassar College, which handles all charitable receipting and federal compliance for the Program. Credit-card gifts are welcome.
- Click Give Now below — the form is pre-set to the Program’s designation.
- Complete the gift in any amount, one-time or recurring.
DA059 – Jewish Studies · Without this designation, your gift will not be routed to the Program.
What Your Gift Makes Possible
Concrete projects and ongoing commitments — the dollars-and-students reality of a small program with a long reach.
Spain, Italy, Central Europe
In Spring 2025 twenty-two students traveled with the Director through ten Iberian cities — from Burgos to Granada to Girona — reading Sephardic and Iberian Jewish sources in situ. Spring 2027 takes a new cohort to Rome, Venice, Florence, and Padua. The Grinspan Travel Fund, established in 2024, helps make these trips possible for students who could not otherwise go.
A Torah restored for the next century
The Polanyes Family Intensive, launched in Fall 2025, builds a credit-bearing course around the restoration of a damaged late-18th- to early-19th-century Bavarian Torah scroll. Students learn Jewish scribal tradition under master scribes and faculty while the scroll itself — otherwise destined for ritual burial — is brought back to usable form. A model of project-based learning at the intersection of religion, art, and conservation. More about the project →
The Fishman and the Sitomer
Two endowed annual lectures anchor the Program's public calendar: the Fishman Family Visiting Scholar (a week-long faculty seminar plus a public lecture) and the Maurice Sitomer Lecture — bringing senior scholars, journalists, artists, and public intellectuals to Poughkeepsie each year.
Hebrew, Yiddish, Aramaic, Arabic
The Program supports Hebrew language at three levels, Yiddish on a self-instructional basis, Aramaic for advanced students working with rabbinic texts, and partners with the Arabic curriculum across the College. Language teaching is the spine of serious Jewish Studies, and every gift underwrites it.
Senior projects and thesis support
Vassar Jewish Studies majors and correlates write senior theses on topics from medieval manuscripts to contemporary Israeli politics. Program funds support travel to archives, materials, and conference presentation — the small, decisive costs that make undergraduate research real.
Alumni convenings & haverim
The Program hosts alumni gatherings, the seasonal newsletter, and a growing circle of haverim — friends of the Program from Vassar and from the wider Jewish-studies world — whose engagement keeps the conversation going beyond graduation.
A Story of a Gift
From the Director's August 2024 letter to alumni and friends.
After the events of October 7, 2023, Judith and Edward Grinspan — both Class of 1974 — wrote to ask how they might support Jewish life on campus during a difficult year. They came to dinner in our home, listened, asked sharp questions, and learned that the Program runs faculty-led trips to Europe in which students read primary sources alongside their texts. They asked how much it cost to send a student who couldn't otherwise afford to go. We told them. They endowed a fund.
In Spring 2025, twenty-two students traveled with us through ten cities of Iberia — from the medieval mikveh at Besalú to the Alhambra in Granada — some wearing kippot, others fasting through Ramadan, one in rapt attention at a cathedral. We sang together in Hebrew, in Spanish, in Ladino. None of those students paid a penny that would have prevented their going. That is what a gift can do.
A diverse group of twenty-two students immersed themselves in the intersecting cultures of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Spain during a 14-day trip… Some wore kippot, others fasted for Ramadan in hijabs, and one had just been seen in rapt genuflection at the cathedral. I sang for them in Hebrew the psalm that was inscribed on the Muslim-design-inspired wall in beautiful Hebrew letters, in the melody that would have been used in this very place before the Expulsion. It was an immensely moving experience and embodied the essence of what we strive to achieve with students in Jewish Studies at Vassar.Marc Michael Epstein · April 2025
Other Ways to Give
By Check
Make payable to Vassar College. Write “DA059 – Jewish Studies” in the memo line. Mail to:
Office of AdvancementVassar College, Box 14
124 Raymond Avenue
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
Securities & Donor-Advised Funds
Vassar accepts gifts of stock, mutual funds, and DAF distributions designated to the Program. Please ask your advisor to specify DA059 – Jewish Studies. Contact the Office of Advancement at advancement@vassar.edu for transfer instructions.
Planned Gifts & Bequests
Bequests, charitable remainder trusts, and other planned gifts may name the Jewish Studies Program (DA059) as beneficiary. The Office of Gift Planning will arrange the appropriate language and answer technical questions.
Talk With Us First
For named gifts, endowed funds, or simply a conversation about what would matter most to you, the Director is delighted to meet by phone, video, or in person.
Marc Michael Epstein · Director
maepstein@vassar.edu
Vassar College is a 501(c)(3) non-profit institution. Gifts are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. Receipts are issued by the Office of Advancement. The Program does not directly process or hold donor funds.