Booker Prize winner Bernice Rubens and actress Sara Sugarman have one thing in common – their Welsh and Jewish roots. But what about the other Jewish women who have lived in the principality over the centuries? The hunt is on for somebody to research their lives.
There may be no Barbara Streisand or Golda Meir, but who were the leaders, the activists, the change makers in their world?
A £6,000 scholarship is being offered to research the experiences of Jewish women in any of the dozens of immigrant Jewish communities in Wales.
“There has been next to no research on the role and influence of Jewish women in Wales; this research scholarship presents an exciting opportunity to blaze a trail in an unexplored field,’ says Professor Nathan Abrams of Bangor University.”
He adds,
“Applicants can focus their investigations on specific issues affecting Jewish women in Wales or home in on a particular Welsh Jewish community, generation, or historical time period; it is very much up to them to discover the focus.”
The Master’s degree by research is funded by the family of Irene Silver in conjunction with the Jewish History Association of Wales and will be supervised by Professor Abrams.
The scholarship will cover one year of full-time or two years of part-time fees for a UK-based student, as well as a small additional stipend for research activities such as travel to conferences and archives and the taking of oral histories. In addition to the 50,000-word thesis, the student will also be expected to provide written or oral contributions to the Association’s newsletter and website, and may participate in public lecture series or other activities.
Said Professor Abrams,
“The scholarship would suit an applicant with a degree or relevant experience in archival work, oral history, history, gender studies, Jewish studies, social sciences, religious studies, or cognate disciplines.
“You must qualify as a UK home student to be eligible for this scholarship. It is open to current students or recent graduates, who will normally need to have achieved at least a 2.1 or equivalent in a first degree to be eligible. However, the scholarship is not age-restricted, and mature students or returning students are encouraged to apply.”
Though the study is based at Bangor University, applicants who live elsewhere can access the scholarship remotely as long as they live in the UK.
Further information is available from Professor Nathan Abrams at n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk.
Feature image: Bangor University by 12xii, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source
