Association for Jewish Studies Appoints First Ombuds

The largest academic Jewish Studies organization in the world has named three Ombuds as part of an effort to address long-standing complaints of sexual misconduct: Flora Cassen; Keren McGinity; and Mira Wasserman. All three are distinguished AJS members. As volunteer Ombuds, they will serve AJS members, conference registrants, and staff. The Ombuds Team members will provide information about resolution options within the AJS, work with complainants seeking informal resolutions, and "perform other relevant functions typical of an 'organizational ombudsman'."

Here are the profiles of the new Ombuds:

Dr. Flora Cassen is associate professor of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies, and History at Washington University in St. Louis with research interests in the social life of Jews in Renaissance Italy, European Jewish History and Culture, Jewish identity, and Antisemitism. In 2018, Flora volunteered to serve on the ad-hoc AJS Sexual Misconduct Task Force. In 2019 she became an Ombuds Team member for the AJS Committee on Sexual Misconduct.

Dr. Keren McGinity is director of Hebrew College’s Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement Program and an honorary research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University where she also teaches American Studies. She is a gender historian and serves on the Academic Advisory Council of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Keren has served on the boards of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry and the AJS Women’s Caucus. In 2018, Keren volunteered to serve on the ad-hoc AJS Sexual Misconduct Task Force. In 2019 she became an Ombuds Team member for the AJS Committee on Sexual Misconduct. Keren is a Forward 50 honoree for her 2018 op-ed “American Jewry’s #MeToo Problem: A First-Person Encounter.”

Dr. Rabbi Mira Beth Wasserman is director of the Center for Jewish Ethics and assistant professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Connecting her academic research and social justice work, Mira draws on Rabbinic literature—the Talmud in particular—as a model for contemporary ethical deliberation. Her teaching responsibilities include training rabbis and rabbinic students in professional ethics and abuse prevention. She is co-editor of the forthcoming Respect and Responsibility: A Jewish Ethics Study Guide deploying Jewish values and text study in the prevention of abuse. In 2019 she became an Ombuds Team member for the AJS Committee on Sexual Misconduct.

A total of six Ombuds may be appointed. (AJS Committee on Sexual Misconduct.) 

Related posts: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Endorses Ombuds for Higher Ed's Sexual Harassment Problem; Ombuds as Part of a Social Justice Framework for Associations.