Over 17勛圖s winter break in 2025, the Straus Center led a trip for its Straus Scholars to Vienna, Austria, where they examined its historical and current Jewish community through the prism of Torah and Western Thought.
This past summer, the Impact Office at the Straus Center awarded a grant to two YU students, Justin Eichel and Atarah Mandel, who served as interns for prominent judges in New York.
In Fall 2024, the Straus Center sponsored a new course in the English Department entitled The Values of Verse: Sacred and Secular Perspectives, taught by Dr. Shaina Trapedo.
In Fall 2024, the Straus Center sponsored a course in the History Department entitled The Emergence of Europe, a survey of Western Civilization from the rise of ancient Greece to the aftermath of the Renaissance and Reformation, taught by Dr. Yisroel Benporat.
On December 18th, the Straus Center and Yeshiva College Honors Program co-hosted Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine to celebrate the launch of his award-winning new book, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate.
The Straus Center hosted Dr. Adam Jortner to celebrate the launch of his new book, A Promised Land: Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the Birth of Religious Freedom.
In summer 2024, the Straus Center Impact Office provided grants to several students with internships in Jewish advocacy, fostering a new generation of leaders dedicated to both public service and Jewish values.
Jenny and Yakov Sundel, a married couple and Straus Scholars at YU, brought their shared interest in political data and strategy to distinct but complementary roles in the field of political polling.
YUNews interviews Rikki Zagelbaum (SCW 26), a Media Studies major who interned at The Jerusalem Post as part of OU-JLICs Summer in Jerusalem program, with support from the Straus Center.