Foundation’s gift to CSUN endows professor of applied Jewish ethics

Thanks to a $500,000 gift from the Maurice Amado Foundation, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), will soon have a professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement.

The Maurice Amado Professor will be the second full professor in the Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program at CSUN’s College of Humanities. The Jewish Studies program, established at CSUN in 1969, teaches approximately 1,000 students in its 28 courses every academic year.

The Maurice Amado Foundation is known for its support of organizations that perpetuate Sephardic heritage and culture — the Amado name is attached to a host of Sephardic Studies events and institutions at UCLA — but the new CSUN professor will approach the topic of Jewish ethics from a worldwide perspective.

“We Jews have something to offer with our understanding of Jewish values, through Talmud, through Torah,” said Honey Kessler Amado, who arranged the foundation’s gift to CSUN together with her late husband, Ralph. “We have a way of looking at the world and probably have some insights to offer as to how to address our societal issues,” she said.

In addition to teaching about and researching how Jewish ethics apply to contemporary issues like bioethics, business ethics and social ethics, the new professor, who will begin teaching in fall 2012, will advise CSUN students engaged in service learning at Jewish nonprofits in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

The foundation’s gift is set to be announced at a private reception on campus Nov. 4.