About

Genesis at Brandeis is a three-week residential precollege program at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, designed for Jewish high school students ages 15–18. It is pluralistic by design — meaning students from every denomination and background are welcome, from day school students steeped in Jewish learning to those who identify culturally but have minimal formal background. There is no right way to be Jewish at Genesis, and the program is explicitly structured so that no level of prior knowledge is required or advantaged.

The academic centerpiece is a single college-level course chosen at the time of application and taught by Brandeis-affiliated faculty and guest instructors. Courses meet two hours per day, five days per week, and include readings, writing, and a capstone project. Recent course offerings have included explorations of Judaism, gender, and justice; American Jews and the social movements they shaped from the Labor Movement through Civil Rights; and close reading of Biblical narratives through a contemporary lens. Beyond the classroom, afternoons are given over to interest-based workshops (creative writing, music, visual art, Torah and Talmud study, pluralism and leadership), and evenings are structured around community-building activities, social programming, and optional daily minyan. Each Sunday the group leaves campus for a day in Boston. Shabbat — from Kabbalat Shabbat Friday evening through Havdalah Saturday night — is student-led throughout, with staff mentorship, and functions as a weekly laboratory in pluralistic Jewish community-building.

Tuition is $5,850, with full and partial scholarships available on a need-and-merit basis, travel stipends of up to $500, and partnership scholarships available through organizations including Foundation for Jewish Camp and several regional Jewish Federations. Students live in air-conditioned Brandeis dormitories with Genesis staff. Kosher food is available at every meal. All programming is egalitarian and students are not separated by gender. The application deadline is May 1; scholarship applications are due April 1.

For a Jewish high schooler who wants to deepen their Jewish identity alongside peers from across the denominational spectrum — while doing serious academic work on campus at one of the country's most prominent Jewish universities — Genesis is one of the most thoughtfully constructed programs of its kind.