last word
HISTORY PROFESSOR
Melissa Klapper
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
I n just a matter of days, Melissa
Klapper went from using “Jeopardy!”
clues to teach her Women in Modern
American History class to competing on
the Alex Trebek Stage.

The Jewish Rowan University profes-
sor ended a four-day “Jeopardy!” run
on March 23, racking up $60,100 in
winnings and gaining status as a three-
day champion.

“This is probably the fi rst time ever
in my career that any student probably
thought that I was cool,” she said.

During her time on “Jeopardy!”, the
49-year-old Merion Station resident
fi elded categories about the Lincoln
Highway, American novelists and
four-letter verbs starting with “V” — not
letting getting beat to the buzzer on a
clue about Yom Kippur get to her head.

Klapper, who teaches American
history at Rowan and is the coordi-
nator of women’s and gender studies,
prepped for her “Jeopardy!” stint,
fi lmed in January, for two weeks. The
Sha’arei Orah Congregation and Lechu
Neranena partnership minyan member
read children’s books on geography
and science to learn quick facts. She
clicked a ballpoint pen to prepare her
buzzer refl exes, though admits to a lack
of hand-eye coordination handicapping
her time on the show.

Her career in academics, however,
gave her an advantage, Klapper said.

“I’m a teacher; I do a lot of public
speaking,” she said. “I don’t have a
problem with being up in front of people,
and that is an issue for some contes-
tants, that they just don’t do that ever
in their real life, and so they get up on
stage and freeze.”
With 22 years of teaching at Rowan,
32 APRIL 6, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Melissa Klapper with “Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings on the set of
the show
Klapper is well-versed in her fi eld. She’s
published four books, including “Ballots,
Babies, and Banners of Peace: American
Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940,”
which won the National Jewish Book
Award in 2013, and, most recently, “Ballet
Class: An American History.”
But Klapper’s “Jeopardy!” journey
started in her childhood homes in Dallas
and Baltimore where she and her family
would play the “Jeopardy!” board game.

Klapper developed a love of trivia,
auditioning for the teen tournament in
high school, and later joining the contes-
tant pool for the adult tournament after
taking the online test. It would take a
second online test 18 months after her
fi rst eff ort to be invited to Los Angeles to
compete on the show.

Klapper’s Jewish family had a love
of learning, and her teacher mother
instilled in her and her sister a love for
reading. “Sometimes after Shabbat dinner on
Friday night ... there would be just the
four of us sitting around in dead silence,
only pages turning,” she said.

As an adult, Klapper’s reading list
topics range from the history of the
Academy Awards to ballet memoirs to
young adult fantasy.

“It’s important to be curious about
the world and to understand that most
people have diff erent experiences from
each other,” Klapper said. “And so learn-
ing about that adds to a person’s sense of
empathy and the ability to imagine lives
other than the ones that they’re living.”
While her breadth of knowledge
gave Klapper the edge on “Jeopardy!”,
the depth of her scholarship gave her
recognition from the American Jewish
Archives and the Hadassah-Brandeis
Institute, among others. Klapper focuses
on the stories not told in many history
books, with a focus on American Jewish
women. “I noticed, from two directions, that
Jewish history often did not talk much
about women,” she said. “And that
general American women’s history narra-
tives — not just American, but general
women’s history narratives — didn’t have
much to say about Jewish people.”
There’s a balance that Klapper has to
keep in her scholarship. As an American
Jewish woman, she feels a closeness to
the histories she tells and understands
fi rsthand the stakes in those stories. As
an academic, she knows not to let those
personal feelings bias her research.

“That’s just part of the job is being able
to maintain that critical distance while
also maintaining a sense of empathy
that comes from some level, at least, of
identifi cation,” she said.

In an interview with JTA.org, Klapper
explained that, after dealing with the
taxes from her “Jeopardy!” earnings, she
hopes to donate a chunk of her $60,000
to the various charities in which she’s
involved, as well as upgrade a previously
planned trip to England this May.

But Klapper hasn’t let her “Jeopardy!”
winnings distract her from her scholar-
ship. She’s working on a fi fth book about
American Jewish women who traveled
between the Civil War and World War II. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Jeopardy!/Sony Pictures
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