A new temporary faculty position is opening up the University to the ideas of innovators and creative thinkers in the American Jewish community.Jewish philanthropist Charles Bronfman is sponsoring an open competition for a two-year visiting professorship at the University.

Applicants must submit five-page proposals explaining an idea that "will transform how the Jewish community thinks about itself," according to the online job posting. A symposium for finalists will be held in February or March. A decision will follow soon after.

"My hope is that among these dozens and dozens of people that have written to me, there will truly be some whose thinking about the community will move us in totally new directions," said Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS), who's administering the competition and will select the winner. He said he couldn't disclose any information about submitted ideas.

The winner will receive an estimated $110,000 salary as the Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation, and will have two years at Brandeis to publish a book based on the idea. The visiting professor will teach one course per semester and present visiting lectures next fall. Sarna said the specifics of the course won't be determined until the winner is chosen.

"The aim is really to ensure that our students can spend time with this creative person, even as we want to make sure that the creative person is able to devote most of their time to working on this project," Sarna said.

Bronfman donated $1.5 million to sponsor this competition and a similar one in two years.

"The goal of this is to create a free space where a bright and creative academic could write a book that would allow the Jewish community to think a little bit about who we are, where we have come from and where we are going," said Roger Bennett, a senior vice president at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation.

Bennett said the presence of Sarna in particular, the foremost scholar on American Jewish history, makes the University an attractive place to hold this competition.

"Sarna, more than most people, has thought deeply, written deeply and led the community thinking about Jewish history and its consistent change," Bennett said. "He is one of the great thinkers we have in the [Jewish] community right now."

Sarna explained that Sears, Roebuck and Co. conducted a similar contest in 1929, awarding $10,000 to the person who best answered the question, "How can Judaism

best adjust itself to and influence modern life?" Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, won by submitting the book Judaism as a Civilization.

"I think our hope [for this contest] is that the result will be a very brilliant book that will also have practical implications," Sarna said. "[Judaism as a Civilization] not only was a very stimulating and important book, [but] it also had very practical implications in terms of how the Jewish community should operate."

Sarna gave the Birthright Israel program, which provides free trips to Israel for Jews ages 18 to 26, as an example of the kind of idea he is looking for from this competition.

"Programs like Birthright Israel are important because we have a real problem in the Jewish community," Prof. Ellen Kellman (NEJS) said. "We are losing people and we need to figure out ways to make a Jewish life and a Jewish identity meaningful to young people coming up."

Provost Marty Krauss, who oversees faculty at the University, said this competition provides Brandeis with an opportunity to find academic contributors who aren't currently in faculty positions.

"There are many intellectuals who have progressive, new and innovative thinking about

Jewish professional leadership who are not currently in an academic setting," Krauss said. "This kind of program ought to be well-received within that cohort of people and should give us an opportunity to provide them with an appropriate venue for developing and articulating new and important ideas. That's what makes universities so special."

Krauss said she doesn't know yet whether she will formally approve the competition's winner for the two-year position, or simply consult Sarna about the choice. Although this open competition could end up awarding a temporary professorship to an individual without significant academic experience, Krauss explained that the University already has several professors just like that.

"We have a number of faculty [members] here who may or may not have a Ph.D. but come from the world of practice or professional life," she said. "We want that kind of diversity of experience here at the University, so this [program] is quite consistent with that."

Kellman, however, said the qualifications of the contest's winner should be reviewed.

"I would assume that all of the person's academic credentials are checked out, and if the person comes here, they will be an appropriate professor for Brandeis," Kellman said.