Spring Break
Revitalizing religion
Professor Fu Youde studies the subtle links between Judaism and Confucianism
by Miranda Neubauer
Senior Writer
Features | 10/7/08
Posted online at 3:00 AM EST on 10/7/08
In the early 1990s, a group of Chinese scholars began translating the complete works of philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Overwhelmed by the complexities of translating ancient material, they enlisted Fu Youde, a professor of philosophy and Jewish studies at Shandong University in China, to help translate a volume called Hebrew Grammar from English to Chinese.
Although the text was mainly in English, it included Jewish and Hebrew references that were hard to understand without any background in Jewish studies, Fu explained. It therefore seemed like an incredibly fortunate coincidence when he received a brochure from the Oxford Center for Jewish and Hebrew Studies, a branch of the University of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England.
His interest in Hebrew and Judaism piqued, Fu immediately took advantage of the opportunity to enroll in a postgraduate program at the center.
Throughout the two years that he spent studying at the center, Fu realized that he could learn many lessons about Confucianism from Judaism.
Upon graduating from the center and returning to China, in 1994 Fu established the Judaic Culture Study Center of Shandong University (renamed the Center for Judaic and Inter-religious Studies in China in 2003), where he is currently the director, in addition to Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Shandong University.
Fu visited Brandeis between Sept. 4 and 12 for a series of lectures on looking at Judaism from the Chinese perspective, inspired by Profs. Sylvia Fishman and Marc Brettler's (NEJS) visit to the Center in China last May.
During one public lecture and two guest lectures in Prof. Jonathon Dechter's (NEJS) "Philosophers, Poets, and Mystics: Jewish Intellectuals in the Middle Ages," Fu elaborated on the connections-as well as the differences-between Judaism and Confucianism.
"Judaism is of significance to China, to the reconstruction of Chinese culture," he said in an interview before the public lecture.
Although the text was mainly in English, it included Jewish and Hebrew references that were hard to understand without any background in Jewish studies, Fu explained. It therefore seemed like an incredibly fortunate coincidence when he received a brochure from the Oxford Center for Jewish and Hebrew Studies, a branch of the University of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England.
His interest in Hebrew and Judaism piqued, Fu immediately took advantage of the opportunity to enroll in a postgraduate program at the center.
Throughout the two years that he spent studying at the center, Fu realized that he could learn many lessons about Confucianism from Judaism.
Upon graduating from the center and returning to China, in 1994 Fu established the Judaic Culture Study Center of Shandong University (renamed the Center for Judaic and Inter-religious Studies in China in 2003), where he is currently the director, in addition to Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Shandong University.
Fu visited Brandeis between Sept. 4 and 12 for a series of lectures on looking at Judaism from the Chinese perspective, inspired by Profs. Sylvia Fishman and Marc Brettler's (NEJS) visit to the Center in China last May.
During one public lecture and two guest lectures in Prof. Jonathon Dechter's (NEJS) "Philosophers, Poets, and Mystics: Jewish Intellectuals in the Middle Ages," Fu elaborated on the connections-as well as the differences-between Judaism and Confucianism.
"Judaism is of significance to China, to the reconstruction of Chinese culture," he said in an interview before the public lecture.
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Ian
posted 10/08/08 @ 12:43 PM EST
The professor is incorrect in saying that Judaism adapted itself to modernism. Judaism created modernism. Why is it that universities that teach the bible as religion instead of history and greek philosophy as history and not religion, find it necessary to diminish the value of Judaism to its centrality in the rise of Western civilization. (Continued…)
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