DR. GILA RAMRAS-RAUCH (1933–2005)

BY ELIZABETH LAWLER
Photo by Clive Grainger

Taking her place at the piano in a packed Berenson Hall, Erela Kedem MJEd'97 confessed a sense of trepidation. "Who am I to compose music to Gila Ramras-Rauch's poems?" she said.

A music teacher and principal of the Israeli Complementary School in Brookline, Kedem was addressing the more than 200 colleagues, family, friends and students who came together on April 11, 2005, to honor the memory of Dr. Gila Ramras-Rauch z'l, the Lewis H. and Selma Weinstein Professor of Jewish Literature at Hebrew College. The previous summer Gila had given her a packet of seven poems, published more than 30 years ago in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, to interpret musically however she wished. In what became a ritual in the months preceding Ramras-Rauch's death on February 16, 2005, Kedem, after finishing each piece, would call and record it on the professor's voicemail.

Ramras-Rauch's taste in music, as with much else, was refined and bold. With the first piece, Kedem said, "I didn't hear back for a month. I thought, 'I'm doomed.'" But then the call came. The professor had been abroad. "Erela," she said, "I loved your song!" And, with typical élan, "Now, what about the other six?"

In an evening rich with music, literature and remembrances, Kedem's story was one of many illuminating the extraordinary reach of Ramras-Rauch's life: a gifted teacher who inspired her students to the full range of their potential; a brilliant literary scholar and author; a generous friend and respected colleague; a loving wife and mother. Seeking the words that could frame Ramras-Rauch's wide-ranging achievements, College President David M. Gordis began his tribute with these: "Breadth, depth, character and humanity."

A leading authority on the works of Aharon Appelfeld and the author of six books of literary analysis, Ramras-Rauch was internationally renowned for her scholarship in Hebrew, biblical, Jewish and modern Israeli literature. At Hebrew College, where she taught these subjects for 23 years, "she brought to the curriculum a broadening of perspectives," said Dr. Sol Schimmel, professor of Jewish education and psychology at Hebrew College. "She taught Hebrew literature and Jewish literature not as isolated subjects, but as part of the whole world of literary theory, of literary expression."

Whether guiding her students through biblical literature, medieval Hebrew poetry or Holocaust writings, she was a powerful presence in the classroom. "I studied literature at Penn and Harvard, but it was Gila who taught me how to read well—how to decipher a text, how to take it apart," says former student Susan Miron MAJS'90, a book critic and close friend, "I never had another teacher as good as Gila."

Ramras-Rauch explored new literary terrain with eloquence and foresight, and was in the midst of research for a book about the writer and Holocaust survivor Ida Fink at the time of her death. According to Dr. Irit Aharony, preceptor in modern Hebrew at Harvard University, her books Aharon Appelfeld: The Holocaust and Beyond (1994)—the first book in English on Appelfeld's work—and L.A. Arieli: Life and Works (1991), in Hebrew, were instrumental in bringing prominence to lesser-known writers. The Arab in Israeli Literature (1989), which Ramras-Rauch wrote under the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities, focused on the depiction of the Arab as "the other"—a subject, says Aharony, that was only later discussed as an issue of importance in Israel.

Ramras-Rauch also penned The Protagonist in Transition: Studies in Modern Fiction (1982) and Brenner and Modern Literature (1979), and co-edited the anthology Facing the Holocaust: Selected Israeli Fiction (1985).

Dr. Nehemia Polen, professor of Jewish thought and director of the Hasidic Text Institute at Hebrew College, lauds Ramras-Rauch's ability to bridge the world of tradition and the world of modernity in her work. "How does one relate to the world of the shtetl, the Talmud and the Rabbis, and bring them to bear on the analysis of modern Israeli literature?" he asks. "She did that in a way that was both aware of the elements of subversion and questioning, as well as the honoring of the past."

The daughter of European-born Zionists, Ramras-Rauch traced her recent focus on Holocaust literature to a personal interest in connecting with the past and the family she lost. "I can readily go and see where my grandparents were born," she once said. "But there's nothing there except this prominent sense of pain that the roots were cut."

Born in Tel Aviv in 1933, Ramras-Rauch maintained a deep love for Israel and returned frequently throughout her life. A diligent student, she completed her early education at a teachers college, where she also developed the feminist perspective that later emerged through her scholarship in women's studies. Following her service in the army, she was selected by the Israeli government to go to North America as a shliha to teach Hebrew and cultivate olim. She taught first in Toronto and Detroit before enrolling at Hunter College, City University of New York, where she earned her master's in 1965. During her student days in Manhattan, she also met her future husband, Dr. Leo Rauch z'l, a scholar of philosophy who specialized in the work of Georg Hegel.

Returning to Israel, Ramras-Rauch joined the faculty at Bar-Ilan University, where she taught Hebrew and comparative literature in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During her tenure at Bar-Ilan, she also accepted visiting lectureships at Indiana University and Hofstra University in 1969. She married Rauch in a civil ceremony in Indiana, and later exchanged vows in a traditional Jewish wedding in Tel Aviv.

With her husband and two young sons, Michael and Daniel, Ramras-Rauch moved to Boston in 1977 as scholar in residence at Brandeis. She then taught at the University of Texas and Ohio State University before making Hebrew College her professional home in 1982. Around the same time, her husband took the position of Professor of Philosophy at Babson College, and the family settled in Brookline.

Recalling the warmth of their home life, Michael Rauch characterizes his parents' bond as intellectual, as well as emotional. "I grew up thinking Schopenhauer and Kafka were family friends, their names came up at the breakfast table so often," he says. "My parents were incredibly in love. They were best friends."

Following Leo Rauch's death in 1997, "Gila showed enormous courage," says Hebrew College Provost Dr. Barry Mesch. In honor of his memory, she organized a continuing series of cultural lectures and discussions in her home, bringing in local and Israeli artists, writers and scholars. "She called it her salon," remembers Dr. Hillel Levine, professor of religion at Boston University, a presenter and guest at the gatherings. "But in fact, Gila could create the same intimacy, warmth and intellectual excitement in a lecture hall with 500 people."

What she couldn't bring to Boston, she traveled to see, frequenting museums, concerts and plays in cities throughout the world. Shai Nathanson, director of the Hebrew Language Program and Ulpan at Hebrew College, remembers the art-filled weekends at Tanglewood that he and his spouse spent with Ramras-Rauch. In a trio she dubbed "the culture vultures," they would in one day take in three museums and a dance concert. "We would be so exhausted, we would be collapsing," he smiles. "And then Gila would say, 'Now what about As You Like It?'—and we would go!"

The Dr. Gila Ramras-Rauch Memorial Lecture Series Fund will bring a noted Israeli or Jewish literary figure to the Boston area each year. For more information, see article.

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