Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895–1968: An Overview

by Marianne R. Sanua

IN CONFRONTING THE novel theme of Jewish college fraternities and sororities, which may at first glance seem a somewhat more light-hearted topic than is usually found in the annals of Jewish historical investigation, one may be reminded of the words which Saul Lieberman, the eminent professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary, is supposed to have said upon introducing Gershom Scholem's earliest lectures on Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism delivered in 1947. "Nonsense is nonsense," he reportedly declared, "But the study of nonsense is scholarship."