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Faculty Profile: Katherine Beller: Adjunct Professor of Jewish History Dr. Beller chose to attend Manchester University, where she earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in history. After making aliyah in 1993, she completed a Ph.D. from Haifa University in Jewish History. Her academic specialization focuses on the trials of Jews before the Italian Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. Professionally, she has been able to combine her love of Jewish history and art. As Archive Officer at The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Dr. Beller heads the Photographic Archive for the Isidore and Anne Falk Information Center for Judaica, an archive collection of 25,000 photographs of Jewish Life from the late 19 th century to the early 21st century. She is also training to be a curator in the Judaica and Jewish Ethnography Wing where she works. Dr. Beller has transmitted her passion for history and art to her students at Gratz Online, where she has taught a number of courses in Jewish history since 2003. In developing the course, "The Jew in the Italian Renaissance," she studied “in the flesh” the Rothschild Miscellany at the Israel Museum, photographed the images and discussed the Renaissance manuscript with her students. “I love that period in particular because I love the history of art and it was wonderful to see how the Jews responded to humanism, new artistic styles and the new self interest in man,” she explains. “I have had the wonderful opportunity at Gratz to create courses and lectures on subjects that speak to me directly.” . In Fall, 2006, she will teach a new brand-new course: History 30516, Jews on Trial, drawing from her research on trials throughout Jewish history, and the background for her new book, "The Jews in the Inquisition: Modena 1600-1670." This course will focus on selected trials that concern Jews, from the trial of Jesus in the first century to that of Adolf Eichmann in the twentieth century. “I hope that it will show a deeper understanding of the whole idea of what it means for a Jew to be on trial in an alien court, often when he is falsely accused, as he has been so many times in history,” she says. “It will incorporate both a psychological and anthropological approach to the testimonies in the trial records and will also answer questions on gender issues and Jewish/Christian relations on a micro level.” Although Jewish history has become her life’s work, painting remains an avocation. She paints, mainly in oils, Jerusalem scenes as well as some abstract work. Dr. Beller calls herself “an addicted runner.” She gets up every morning at 5:30 a.m. and goes running around Bet Shemesh, outside of Jerusalem, where she lives, for an hour. “I call it my morning therapy - I get a chance to think about issues, what I will be doing during the day, before the rest of my household rises.” The mother of three children, she begins the morning by taking her children to school and then heads to work at the Israel Museum. “The great challenge during my day remains how to educate visitors in an interactive way in a museum gallery,” she says. “In the evening through teaching in Gratz, I am able - I hope - to educate my students in a completely different way - in the online classroom.” As for her favorite aspect about teaching at Gratz Online, she replies, “ Firstly, meeting the students and getting to know how they think. Having interaction with them on a daily/ weekly basis and watching them develop and share their ideas both in writing and in discussion. It is also a wonderful learning experience for me especially when I teach a new course to see how students respond to my ideas and questions.” Her students agree. As one student puts it, “Dr. Beller is an excellent professor. This course was well thought out and the readings and assignments were appropriate for this type of program. Dr. Beller constantly forced me to re-evaluate my thinking and approach to the subject matter and was always available for help and guidance. Her comments and criticisms were accurate and helpful. I learned a lot in this course and would definitely take another course with Dr. Beller.” |
When Dr. Katherine Aron Beller was an eighteen-year-old high school student in London, England, she faced a tough decision: Should she go to art school and earn a degree in fine arts or attend university and study history?