Teaching Jewish studies in a radically gentile space: Some personal reflections

In this essay, I reflect on the challenges faced by professors teaching Jew ish studies in a Catholic university system. The essay records my experienc es teaching two courses, "Judaism and the Holocaust" and "American Judaism: Thought and Culture", at Santa Clara University as an adjunct lecturer dur ing the academic year 1994-95. The essay touches on broader questions conce rning "the dialectics of difference" that inform cross-cultural education a nd exchange. Teaching Jewish studies in any gentile space (Catholic, Protes tant, or secular) entails a constructive tension between trust and suspicio n, candor and reserve.