Scholar-in-Residence Program Opens With Israeli Author’s Visit

A 34-year-old Jewish businessman has launched a program--only the fourth of its kind in the nation--to bring a top Israeli scholar to Orange County each year for a monthlong series of lectures at synagogues and universities and to community groups.

The scholar-in-residence program, the brainchild of Arie Katz, general counsel to a Newport Beach fitness firm, will kick off later this month with Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Avigdor Shinan as its inaugural lecturer.

Shinan, author of six books and chairman of the Hebrew literature department and the university’s dean of students, is to give 28 talks in 26 days to a spectrum of Jewish audiences, from Orthodox to Reform to nonobservant and secular crowds.

He’s already proved his popularity elsewhere.

“Are they going to have Dr. Shinan? Oh, go! He’s outstanding!” said Clara S. Gordon, whose Foundation for Jewish Studies in Rockville, Md., is credited with starting the Jewish scholar-in-residence program 15 years ago in Washington, D.C. “He had groupies when he was with us. People followed him around from lecture to lecture.”

The idea, Katz said, is to give the Jewish community longer exposure to world-class scholars by pooling financial resources to pay the bill; similar programs can cost up to $60,000 a month to run.

“No single synagogue could possibly afford to bring a serious scholar in from Israel for a month. No one is that rich,” said Rabbi Martin Cohen of Congregation Eilat in Mission Viejo. “By sharing, everything becomes reasonable.”

Topics of Shinan’s Orange County lectures will include: “The Encounter With Islam in Rabbinic Literature,” “The Creation of Eve in the Talmud” and “Moses and his Two Wives.”

While in Orange County, Shinan will live in a donated beachfront home in Newport Beach, be given a car, food, a personal kosher chef and an undisclosed honorarium. The program is scheduled mostly for February, to coincide with the semester break at Israeli universities, allowing easier access to professors.

Katz said he expected expenses to run about $30,000 the first year. The tab is being paid by a rare alliance of Jewish organizations, synagogues and community members that will allow the lectures to be free or low cost to the public.

“It’s very unusual, all the cooperation,” Katz said.

The intense desire to hear top academics erases congregational and political barriers, said program organizers.

“That is one of the pluses,” Gordon said. “It brings the community together for the purpose of study.”

Still, complex logistics, lack of cooperation among groups and limited funding have kept the scholar-in-residence program to a few Jewish communities.

Katz said he came up with the idea last year after a weekend retreat that featured a renowned Jewish scholar. He left wanting more, especially since he lived in Orange County, where access to top Jewish scholarship was limited. The recent Boston transplant said he had been spoiled by the opportunities available at Harvard University and other area colleges.

“I figured I could either leave Orange County and go somewhere else or create something here,” he said.

Research led him to the scholar-in-residence programs in Washington D.C., Houston and West Palm Beach, Fla.

“It’s really a treat to the community,” said Marilyn Hassid, program director of the Jewish Community Center of Houston, which has sponsored the program for 14 years.

The program differs from traditional one-night or weekend lectures because people can delve more deeply into subjects by attending more talks.

Rabbi Cohen said people have the opportunity to attend a year’s worth of university lectures in a month.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “People take years off of work and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this kind of education.”