How a Cocktail Party Led to a Lifelong Learning Program
After the founding of the Center for Jewish Studies in 1991, dozens of UW alumni, their spouses, and family members asked how they could help to support the new program. A unique role was played by Lawrence Greenfield (BS 1956 in Electrical Engineering) and his wife Roslyn, who attended the School of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy at McGill University in Canada. The article below draws on reflections offered by Ros in a 2015 interview.
In the late 1990s, Larry and Ros Greenfield hosted a cocktail party at their apartment in New York City to help raise funds for CJS. After the party, the Greenfields and several guests sat around talking, and Ros remarked that a number of her friends who grew up in Jewish homes had mentioned to her that they had “no Jewish education, none whatsoever. They knew nothing about the history and culture.” It was this need that gave birth to the idea of a summer institute in Jewish studies for adults beyond the college age.
Larry grabbed onto the idea, and, as Ros recalled, “he was known to be very persistent if he was interested in something.” In the initial conversations with faculty, administrators, and donors, everyone liked the concept in principle but thought it unfeasible due to financial and bureaucratic obstacles. “That’s all he had to hear,” said Ros. Larry persisted, providing crucial funds and completing the other necessary steps.
Held in July of 2000, the first institute was on the topic, “Jewish Identity in the 20th Century.” At the time, the institute did not yet carry the Greenfield name. By 2002, Ros recalled, Larry had become ill, and it was in that summer that the Center changed the name to the Greenfield Summer Institute. Unfortunately, that was Larry’s last summer. He passed away in June 2003, ten days before the beginning of the program now bearing his name. “He wanted desperately to be here,” Ros explained, “but that was not to be. Now I feel very much that if he was up there”—she pointed upward—“he would be kvelling, because this is his legacy.”
The legacy is now in its 25th year. Each fall, a committee of CJS faculty selects a theme, which often stems from suggestions made by Greenfield attendees. The committee then begins brainstorming, thinking broadly about scholars doing research on subjects under the rubric of the year’s theme. The result is a far-ranging, eclectic selection of talks that prompt the audience to think expansively about the history and culture of the Jewish people.
As Ros would later reflect, “It’s really like an adult summer camp, where the adults are reciving the most intellectually stimulating lectures that they could possibly imagine.”
2025 Greenfield Summer Institute, “Jews and Popular Culture”
With talks that range from Jewish graffiti in the ancient world to the efforts of American manufacturers to court Jewish consumers, this year’s GSI also includes a special performance at the Hamel Music Center, “When We Remembered Zion: Jewish Songs of Love, Loss, and Life,” by Philip V. Bohlman, Artistic Director of the Jewish cabaret troupe the New Budapest Orpheum Society, and musicians from the Mead-Witter School of Music. For the full program and information about registration, see cjs.wisc.edu/greenfield/.