UC Judaic Studies professor makes local, international impact

Slowly, Safran-Naveh and her colleagues created a substantial group of alumni, former faculty and community members that supported their goal of transforming Judaic Studies from a program to a department.

It was a service to the university from the beginning, Safran-Naveh says. “As faculty, we teach, research and serve, and part of the service to the university and to the college is to help it thrive,” she says.

She has found a community in Cincinnati that shares her ongoing quest for knowledge, which for Safran-Naveh started at a young age after being born in the Transnistria concentration camp at the end of World War II. 

Growing up, she wasn’t supposed to ask her surviving relatives about the experience, thus spurring a lifelong interest in Judaic Studies and sharing the stories of Holocaust survivors, she says.

“We were told not to bother the survivors too much when we were kids, because there’s so much pain,” she says. “But I had many questions. That was always an impetus to look for that absence. There’s a void, there’s an absence that you try to understand, but we could not talk about that too much because it hurt our beloved. So, I was always researching.”

Now, Safran-Naveh is working on a new book about the experiences of women during the Holocaust, and she will present a paper at the 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem this August.

On her new emerita title, Safran-Naveh says: “They have a lot of activities, including mentoring students. You want to guide them to the research and in the direction that would be the most fruitful and most appropriate for their own interest. This is a wonderful bridge to other kinds of activities where I continue serving the university in my college.”

Today, her impact at UC has been substantial. Safran-Naveh has received the prestigious Dolly Cohen Award, the Edith Alexander Award Instruction and the George C. Barbour Award—all for outstanding instruction at the university level.

Valerio Ferme, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, wrote of Safran-Naveh when granting her professor emerita status: “With this title, the Board of Trustees of the University of Cincinnati formally recognizes Gila’s very important contributions. It has been an honor to work with a dedicated educator whose remarkable career is a source of inspiration.”

Additionally, many students, former and current, credit her contributions to their academic and personal successes.

“I felt like I finally have been given the ability to take control of my narrative, and that power was given to me by you and the way you run your classroom,” Kayla Stemmer, a former student of Safran-Naveh’s, wrote to her in 2018. “You and this class are the sole reason that I have not dropped out; in fact, I feel like I have a new dream to follow and I’m excited about next semester instead of dreading it.”

Max Bleich, a Judaic Studies graduate, said of Safran-Naveh: “She is articulate, calming and comforting to have teaching subjects that are complex and emotionally impactful.”

She will continue to make an impact on students this fall when she returns to teaching at UC.

“There is a lot of work to do,” she says. “As the poet said, you know, ‘Miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.’ There is a lot of work to be done.”

Featured image at top: Old city, Jerusalem, Israel. Credit/Sander Crombach on Unsplash.