Awards

The David A. Kadish Humanities Scholarship Award recognizes an undergraduate student with financial need who displays a strong interest in the study of the humanities. One scholarship in the amount of $1,000 is given each year in Spring quarter. This scholarship is funded through gift funds from David Kadish (History, ‘73).

Eligible applicants are registered UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students in good standing during the Spring quarter and declared in one of the following majors: Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism, Classical Studies, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Feminist Studies, German Studies, History, Italian Studies, Jewish Studies, Language Studies, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, or Spanish Studies.

Haas/Koshland Memorial Award

Each year, young adults are nominated and apply for the Haas/Koshland Memorial Award, a grant that funds up to $20,000 a year of personal exploration or study in Israel. Applicants do not need to be Jewish, can be first-time or return travelers to Israel, and can use the award to study, discover their passion, perform advocacy work, intern, or just explore the land, its complex social and political issues, and its rich history.

Eligibility: The award is open to young adults who are from, or attend school in, the San Francisco Bay Area and wish to broaden their personal life, academic life, or both. The applicant does not need to be enrolled in a course of study to apply.

More information can be found on the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco website.

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute accepts six undergraduate and two graduate students with a demonstrated interest in women’s studies, Jewish women’s studies or topics related to Jewish women/Jewish gender issues around the world to participate in a paid residential internship program. Applications are accepted from students attending universities in the U.S. and abroad.

The Gilda Slifka Internship Program at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute provides undergraduate students with a variety of opportunities to learn about the work of Jewish women’s studies scholars and centers, and try their hand at research in the field. Interns assist HBI-affiliated scholars and offices, and develop their own individual projects. Weekly outings to research archives and places of Jewish interest, and discussions with Jewish studies and women’s studies scholars, expose interns to various methodologies and academic frameworks. Interns live on the Brandeis University campus in housing provided by the HBI and receive a weekly stipend.

More information can be found on the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute website.

The JVS Scholarship Program provides qualified Jewish students whose primary residence is in Los Angeles with need-based financial aid, in the belief that education represents the first step to career success. Scholarships are available from $500 to $5,000.

Eligibility Requirements

  • Must be Jewish
  • Minimum age of 16 years
  • Permanent and legal resident of Los Angeles County – for a minimum of three years
  • U.S. citizen or documented legal permanent U.S. resident (green card)
  • Planning to attend an accredited public or private college, university or vocational school in the U.S.
  • Planning to enroll full-time (minimum 12 units per term)
  • Maintain a minimum 2.7 GPA for undergraduate students and a minimum 3.0 GPA for graduate students for every semester or quarter enrolled.
  • Demonstrated and verifiable financial need including FAFSA (student aid report)

More information can be found on the JVS website.

Steiner Summer Yiddish Program

The Steiner Summer Yiddish Program offers motivated students the opportunity to immerse themselves in Yiddish language and culture. Participants study with renowned scholars and build a community of yidishkayt in a supportive residential setting.

In the Steiner Summer Yiddish Program, undergraduate and graduate students ages 18-26:

  • take a full year of language courses in seven weeks, tuition free
  • gain substantive knowledge of Central and Eastern European Jewish history and culture in seminars with leading scholars of literature, film, music, and history
  • earn up to six college credits upon successful completion of the program
  • experience contemporary Yiddish culture during a field trip to New York City, where they tour Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods and attend cultural events
  • attend the Yiddish Book Center’s Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music
  • participate in paid internships, gaining professional experience working on Yiddish-based projects (intermediate students only)
  • create a community of peers from around the world in a residential environment

More information can be found on the Yiddish Book Center website.

Tikkun Volunteer and Internship Program

Tikkun is a magazine dedicated to healing and transforming the world. We seek writing that gives us insight on how to make that utopian vision a reality. We build bridges between religious and secular progressives by delivering a forceful critique of all forms of exploitation, oppression, and domination while nurturing an interfaith vision of a caring society — one whose institutions are reconstructed on the basis of love, generosity, nonviolence, social justice, caring for nature, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of the universe.

There are many volunteer and internship opportunities at Tikkun. We are looking for students and recent college graduates who would like to work on healing and repairing the world now (tikkun olam).

More information can be found on the Tikkun magazine website.

The Tower Tomorrow Fellowship offers a select group of university students (undergraduate and graduate) a challenging summer aimed at educating future journalists, writers and advocacy professionals in research, analysis, writing for publication, strategic communications and media management.

Working with world-class writers and media professionals, Fellows will learn about coverage of Israel and the region, meet with journalists, scholars, and diplomats, and undertake an intensive eight-week course.

For more information, please visit the Tower Tomorrow Fellowship website.

Dr. William F. Sater has been giving back to UC Santa Cruz annually since 1990 in honor of his daughter Rachel Sater (Kresge, ‘93). In 2020, Professor Sater established this scholarship endowment in tribute and memory of his mother, Mollie Cass Sater. The Mollie Cass Sater Memorial Scholarship in Jewish Studies shall be awarded to one or more undergraduate students with financial need who display a strong interest in Jewish Studies.

If you are a UC Santa Cruz undergraduate student with financial need who displays a strong interest in Jewish Studies, you may be eligible for this award. You must be a registered student in good standing during the spring quarter and declared in one of the Humanities Division majors.

Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature & Culture

The Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture, established in 1968, is the oldest intensive Yiddish summer program in the world. The 6-week program offers classes from beginner to advanced levels and a wide variety of cultural and enrichment activities. Under the auspices of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Bard College, the program offers peerless instruction in the Yiddish language and an in-depth exploration of the literature and culture of East European Jewry and its diaspora communities.

More information can be found on the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research website.

Yiddish Book Center Fellowship Program (Recent Graduates)

The Yiddish Book Center Fellowship Program offers recent college graduates a yearlong professional experience in Yiddish language and Jewish cultural work. Fellows spend a year as full-time staff members, learning valuable professional skills and contributing to the Center’s major projects, working closely with colleagues and supervisors.

More information can be found on the Yiddish Book Center website.

The Jewish Studies Program invites submissions for the 2023-2024 Jewish Studies Undergraduate Research Awards. To encourage and reward outstanding research and writing on Jewish themes by undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz, the Awards Committee will select four outstanding essays, senior theses, websites, exhibits, or articles that represent distinguished examples of undergraduate scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies. All majors are encouraged to apply.

Submissions should be sent to the Department of History via email attachment (historyundergrad@ucsc.edu) by Friday, May 24th, 11:59pm. A letter of support from a faculty sponsor is recommended, but not required.

Questions may be directed to Jewish Studies Academic Advising Coordinator, Bruce Thompson.

Now accepting applications for Summer 2025! Apply by Monday, May 5, 2025 at 11:59pm.

Digital Heritage Mapping (DHM) is a multi-disciplinary 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that melds age-old scholarship with 21st century technology to assert the importance of physical location to the understanding of history. Launched in 2008, DHM’s flagship initiative, Diarna (“Our Homes” in Judeo-Arabic): the Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life, pioneers the synthesis of digital mapping technology, traditional scholarship, and field research, as well as a trove of multimedia documentation to create virtual entry points to once vibrant, yet now largely vanished, communities.

In 2018, DHM launched Beitenu – The Atlas of Jewish Life to encompass and expand upon Diarna. To date, Beitenu has grown beyond the Middle East and North Africa to include Jewish sites, memories, and communities in 66 countries, including Poland, Mexico, Azerbaijan, and Mexico.

Working on Diarna provides unrivaled opportunities to explore the past, gain insights into people and places and the present, as well as uncover hidden history. Diarna was profiled in Smithsonian Magazine (June 2020), featured on the cover of Newsweek (2017), and listed as a resource for scholars in the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (2010). Exhibitions of Diarna photographs and/or interactive installations have occurred around the world, including at Paris City Hall, New York City’s Center for Jewish History, and Dubai’s Crossroads of Civilizations Museum. Diarna has been presented at conferences of Wellesley College, Association for Jewish Studies, American Sephardi Federation, Association of Jewish Librarians, and the Kingdom of Morocco’s Rabita Mohammadia des Oulémas and US Department of State for the “First Regional Conference on Cultural Heritage Protection for Religious Communities.”

What you will learn: Diarna interns will be part of an international, interfaith team dedicated to identifying, documenting, and preserving Jewish sites and memories. The work covers a range of areas, to be assigned depending upon skill level and interest, as well as current priorities. Possible assignments may include:

  • Research determining exact locations of Jewish sites in cities and towns across the region
  • Sourcing photographs and video (archival and contemporary) of these sites
  • Writing brief site entries for mapped locations by analyzing and synthesizing fragments of information culled from diverse sources
    • (Note: the above three items may require conducting interviews as well as interfacing with partnered research institutions)
  • Translating research documents or project materials for publication
  • Helping prepare basic educational materials (e.g., curricular supplements, video presentations, lectures, virtual guided tours)
  • Assist with basic maintenance of the site, carrying out occasional tasks of proofreading, basic editing of materials for/on the site. Testing website links and reporting errors and inconsistencies.

Past interns have successfully presented at conferences, developed a lesson plan, and helped create exhibitions.

Interns are expected to complete assignments in a timely and efficient manner, work for at least two months during the summer, post findings regularly to shared online documents or the project’s research database, meet all assignment-specific deadlines, and contribute in other ways as required.

Fellows will work remotely – all work will be conducted online. Fellows are responsible for their own housing arrangements.

Who are you? All majors welcome. Knowledge of one or more relevant languages in addition to English would be helpful. Fellows should be comfortable working independently without daily supervision. Ideal candidates are:

  • Curious and conscientious
  • Determined to get results
  • Appreciative of the importance and urgency of the work

Compensation: Each fellow will receive 5,500 USD in the form of a fellowship administered by The Humanities Institute. Dates for the fellowship are June 16-August 22, 2025.

To ApplySubmit transcript, CV, and cover letter to Associate Professor Alma Heckman (aheckman@ucsc.edu) by Monday, May 5, 2025 at 11:59pm.

Last modified: Aug 21, 2025