Dr. Jeffrey S. Shoulson

Jeffrey Spencer Shoulson, Ph.D., assistant professor of English literature for the University of Miami, who has been with the University since 1995, received his doctorate from Yale University. His areas of specialty include early Jewish literature and the representations of Jews and Judaism in English literature. Fluent in both Biblical and modern Hebrew as well as several other languages, Shoulson was recently a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and has been a Fulbright scholar.

“Professor Shoulson brings a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm to the Judaic Studies Program and will help to revitalize it and take it to the next level,” said Professor Haim Shaked, Director of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies. “We very much look forward to working with him and building a first-rate academic program in Judaic studies at the University of Miami.”

UM’s Judaic Studies program, which is non-theological in orientation, offers students of all religions the opportunity to explore the multi-faceted historical and cultural record of the Jewish people. The program will be restructured to provide students an in-depth liberal arts education as well as exposure to a variety of career fields. Institutionally part of the University’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Judaic Studies Program works closely with the Miller Center, the first University located academic and research center in the United States to focus primarily on 20th and 21st Century Jewish studies as well as trends affecting the future of the Jewish people.

Shoulson is a member of the board of trustees of the Havurah of South Florida and has taught adult education classes at Temple Judea, Temple Israel, Beth Shira, and Temple Beth David in Miami and through the Florence Melton Adult Mini School. He also serves as an Associate Master of Hecht Residential College and lives on the Coral Gables campus of UM with his wife, Margery Sokoloff, and their two children, Sophia and Oliver.