Rochelle Berman is a senior in the Double Degree program between Barnard College and The Jewish Theological Seminary, majoring in Middle Eastern Studies, Jewish Texts and Interpretations, and minoring in Translation Studies.
For her senior thesis in Barnard’s AMEC Department, Rochelle intends to study nationalism and peoplehood in Palestine/Israel through the lens of folk dance, with a focus on the influence and incorporation of Arab dance genres into Israeli Folk Dance. Her research will entail conducting interviews with folk dance teachers and dancers and accessing primary source documents, along with secondary sources such as other research papers and documentaries.
In addition to her hard language skills in Arabic and Hebrew, Rochelle has studied methods of sociological analysis through classes such as Language and Society, Urban Conflict in the Middle East, and ethnographies, and she has studied and written about institutional power and violence, religious and ethnic conflict, and sacred texts and traditions. Through dance classes at Barnard and her participation in International Folk Dance, Rochelle learned about the effects of dance on community – and in particular, the diasporic connections made through dance. She is excited to uncover more about this story in order to use it as a lens to analyze nationalism and peoplehood in Israel/Palestine and contribute to academic inquiry through ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology.