Ethan Arbiser
Degree and Year
Environmental Science and Jewish Studies, 2017C
Post-graduate Position
Immediately after school, I started teaching Israeli history at The Weber School and also initiated an onsite sustainability program, where I educated students and faculty about the benefits of sustainability.
Current Profession
Currently, I am an Energy Benchmarking Analyst at Yardi Systems, a large real estate accounting and property management software company, where I assist clients with sustainability reporting through utility data.
Long-term Goals
I plan to continue my passion of incorporating sustainability into the built environment to further reduce carbon footprint and become a better steward of the Earth and its resources through data driven decisions.
Why did you decide to become a Jewish studies major?
Thinking back, I became a Jewish studies major by accident. I went to Jewish day school all my life and wanted to continue my Jewish education outside of the traditional day school environment. I started my freshman year taking classes that interested me (History of Modern Israel with Dr. Ken Stein) and Hebrew. I continued to take more Jewish studies classes as I became fascinated with Jewish education within the secular world. As I started declaring my major(s) near the end of sophomore year, I realized I had taken enough Jewish studies courses that I could obtain the major. I really enjoyed the balance between the sciences with environmental science and liberal arts education with Jewish studies.
What was your favorite memory or experience at Emory related to your major?
I really enjoyed learning from Dr. Ken Stein in History of Modern Israel and Arab Israeli Conflict. I had a great deal of Jewish education on the history of Israel, but never from a real political scholar, and this opened my curiosity for the topic. Additionally, I really enjoyed my Hebrew language courses and had an instructor (Esther Simmons Weinberg) that really valued conversational Hebrew. We did exercise that enhanced understanding and proficiency with conversations and it was great to use during my internship experiences in Israel. Lastly, as an environmental science major, a course that also intrigued me was Melvin Konner’s Anthropology of the Jews course. I remember I was fascinated with the anthropological story of the Jews and Jewish traditions and how these traditions developed over time while Jews were guests in other lands. In conclusion, I was extremely grateful to be exposed to some of the best scholars of Jewish Studies/history while at Emory University.
Published on 4/2/20