During midterms, George Washington University Professor Robert Eisen provides his Spotify link to his students, sharing his original folk/rock, pop and country creations, in hopes that the young 20-somethings realize that academics aren’t “all nerdy intellectuals.”
When Eisen is not playing his guitar, he’s lecturing on religion and Judaic studies at GW or penning a book. His latest work, “Jews, Judaism, and Success: How Religion Paved the Way to Modern Jewish Achievement,” — seven years in the making — was published in May 2023. Eisen, the director of GW’s Judaic studies program, has researched on approaches to peace and violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He lives in Silver Spring with his wife and is a member of Kemp Mill Synagogue.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in a home that was passionate about Judaism, very identified. I guess you would classify it as “Conservadox.” I got a Jewish day school education from [kindergarten] all the way to the end of high school. I continued to study on my own.
What inspired you to pursue Judaic studies?
I went to college with the intent of going to medical school. I took all my pre-med requirements and the MCAT but, at the same time, I decided I wanted to major in history because if I was going to be a doctor, I wanted to be an interesting doctor. I ended up realizing that I was better at the humanities and I ended up being really interested in intellectual history philosophy, and ultimately, Jewish thought. So I made a switch at the end of my undergraduate career, decided I wanted to do a Ph.D. in Judaic studies and became an academic.
You grew up in Toronto. Why did you choose to work in D.C.?
In the academic world, you don’t choose where you want to work. You’re lucky if you can get a job anywhere. There are a lot of Ph.D.s like me who were very talented and had great difficulty finding a place. You go to where the job is, and I just happen to be very lucky in getting a job in a major city, a major university with a wonderful Jewish community. So it’s not that I chose D.C.; GW chose me.
Religion is such a big part of your career. Why do you think students should study religion?
Because the vast majority of the world identifies with one religion or another. Sometimes that’s hard to believe when you’re in a major American city where there are a lot of people who aren’t interested in religion. But, in fact, most of the world is religious. Religion also reflects every dimension of the human personality, whether it’s both good and bad, every aspect of what we are as human beings is reflected in religion.
And then, finally, in the international arena, religion is incredibly important. The number of conflict wars that are fought over religion fill newspapers every day, including the one going on in the Middle East right now. So religion is maybe one of the most important subjects you could study in order to get an education.
You mentioned the Israel-Hamas war. How do you talk about such a difficult topic in your classroom?
Very carefully and very delicately. My goal is to try to get the students to appreciate that it’s a very complicated conflict. The whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a long, chronic conflict that has lasted from the beginning of Zionism 150 years ago. It’s also, in some ways, a morally ambiguous conflict. I try to get students to appreciate the complexity of the conflict, by trying to get them to appreciate both narratives: the Israeli narrative and the Palestinian narrative. I’m a very strong supporter of Israel, but I think [we need] to understand both sides, and that’s not easy. It’s not easy to teach that, and it’s not easy for students to absorb; they often come in with very simplistic views.
You’re also a singer-songwriter. Tell me more about that.
I guess it’s always been a hobby. When I was trying to decide between being a doctor and an academic, the third possibility was that what I really wanted to do more than those two things was to be a rock star. I love music. I love lots of different types of music. I was trained as a classical guitarist. I took lessons for many years as a teenager, and then … I joined a rock band. So, I’ve always had fantasies of being a rock star. At this point in
my life, I’m not sure I’m willing to give up on it entirely. I’m still hoping that the Rolling Stones will need another guitarist. And given the fact they’re all about 80 years old, I could actually step in and help.
I find academia is a very difficult career in some ways, but I think being a musician is much worse. I mean, the chances of success are even worse than academia. I never had any illusions about that and realized the best thing is to keep [music] as a hobby, and perform and sing and put out songs on Spotify when you want to. I keep the dream alive in my home here with my guitar, which is my main instrument, and I put out this album on Spotify and YouTube, which was original songs that I’ve written over 45 years. It’s not a huge body of material; it’s about 10 songs. I get a thrill every time I get a stat that somebody’s listening to one of my songs somewhere.
