Presenter and Respondent Biographies
Mary Boys
Mary C. Boys, Ph.D., has been the Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York City since 1994. She additionally serves as an adjunct faculty member at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and Teachers College, Columbia University. Her publications include Biblical Interpretation in Religious Education (1980), Educating in Faith: Maps and Visions (1989), Jewish-Christian Dialogue: One Woman’s Experience (1997), and Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding (2000). Boys received her master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University in a joint program with Union Theological Seminary, and has done advanced study at the Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research in Jerusalem, Israel. (read abstract)
Steve Brand
Steve Brand is an Emmy Award-winning film and television producer whose feature documentary Kaddish, about growing up as the child of a Holocaust survivor, was selected for New Directors/New Films and was named one of the 10 Best Films of its year by David Edelstein in the Village Voice. He has been a producer for the PBS newsmagazine program Now, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, ABC News 20/20 and Primetime Live, and CBS News Street Stories. His longform television work includes a PBS documentary about the first Intifada's impact on Israelis, and one hour of a five-part NBC series on the future of medicine with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. His independent work has been shown theatrically throughout the United States and abroad, as well as on home video. A four-time Emmy nominee, he is also the recipient of two Cine Golden Eagles, two First Place Gold Camera Awards from the U.S. International Film and Video Festival, a World Media Festival Silver Award and an Angel Award. He has received three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Among other film experiences, he served as an on-air correspondent for the PBS coverage of the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Jerusalem. He is currently working on Praying With My Legs, an independent feature documentary about the life, thought and transformational impact of the great Jewish religious philosopher and human rights activist Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. (read abstract)
Phil Cunningham
Philip A. Cunningham is Executive Director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Boston College. The author of several articles and books on Christian-Jewish relations, his academic interests include biblical studies, religious education, and theologies of Christian -Jewish relations. His most recent publications include A Story of Shalom: The Calling of Christians and Jews by a Covenanting God (2001) and Sharing the Scriptures (2003), both published by Paulist Press. He has also edited Pondering the Passion: What’s at Stake for Christians and Jews? (2004, published by Sheed & Ward). Professional memberships include the advisory committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Biblical Association of America. For several years he has been a co-convener of the CBA's continuing seminar on Biblical Issues in Christian-Jewish Relations. (read abstract)
Arnold Eisen
Arnold Eisen, Ph.D. is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and Religion at Stanford University, and Chancellor-Elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Eisen’s expertise focuses on the modern transformations of Jewish religious beliefs and practice. His publications include Taking Hold of the Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America (Indiana University Press, 2000), The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America (written together with Stephen Cohen; Indiana University Press, 2000), Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community (University of Chicago Press, 1999), and Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming (Indiana University Press, 1986).(read abstract)
Sharon Feiman-Nemzer
Sharon Feiman-Nemser is a Mandel Professor of Jewish Education at Brandeis University and serves as the Director of the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Chicago, and her expertise is in elementary education, Jewish education, and teacher education. She has written several articles and books, including Exploring Teaching: Reinventing an Introductory Course (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992) which she co-edited with H. Featherstone. She is currently working on two books, one about progressive teacher education and the other about mentoring of new teachers.
Gordon Fellman
Gordon Fellman is a Sociology Professor and chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies at Brandeis University, where he has been teaching since 1964. Fellman studied sociology at Antioch College and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. The focus of his research is peace and conflict studies, social class and social change, Marx and Freud, sociology of empowerment, psychoanalytic sociology, and sociology of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. His recent publications include Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival (Albany: SUNY Press. 1998).
Padre Paolo Gamberini
Padre Paolo Gamberini received his doctorate in Philosophy at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan (1983) with a thesis on the Jewish theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel, the year he entered the Jesuit Order. Ordained in 1989, he studied Theology at Frankfurt and Tübingen. He received his doctorate at the Philosophisch-theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt with a thesis on Analogy in the Theology of Eberhard Jünegl. He has been working since 1985 in the Ecumenical movement especially with Anglicans and Lutherans. Since 1992 he has been teaching at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy, where he is an associate member of the Faculty. He is a member of the Jesuit Ecumenist Society and spent study programs and visits in India, Nepal and Egypt. He published several essays on Dogmatics, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue.
Peter Geffen
Peter Geffen is the Founder of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City, and of KIVUNIM: Directions which he continues to lead. He has worked with many new day schools across the United States and Canada over the past decade and is an acknowledged authority on the application of Heschel’s philosophy to Jewish education. With a lifelong interest in new media and Jewish history. Peter served as chief consultant to the Heritage Civilization and the Jews DVD-Rom project of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, directing its work in educational applications, teacher training and the development of the PBS web site that will support its use throughout the world. Peter writes and speaks regularly on the life and work of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Peter has recently launched a new international education program called KIVUNIM: New Directions, taking entering college freshman on a year program based in Israel, while traveling to and studying in 8 countries of the Jewish historical and contemporary world. (read abstract)
Gianluca Giannini
Gianluca Giannini is a moral philosopher who develops work-research for the
Department of Philosophy (University of Naples Federico II). He has written:
Ethics and Religion in Abraham Joshua Heschel (Naples, 2001); Abraham Joshua
Heschels Philosophie des Judentums (Heidelberg, 2003); To discover 'existenz'
with Lévinas and Ricoeur (Naples, 2003); Emil L. Fackenheim: Jewish
Philosophy between Hegelism and New Thought (Naples, 2004); Shoah and the
Problem of Faith in R.L. Rubenstein (Naples, 2004); Philosophy, Religion and
Jewish Philosophy (Naples, 2004); Moses, Monotheism and the Genesis of
'Politischen' (Naples, 2006). He also has translated into Italian: Moses
Hess, Rom und Jerusalem. Die Nationalitätsfrage (2002).
Arthur Green
Arthur Green, Ph.D., the Irving R. Brudnick Professor of Jewish Theology and Mysticism at Hebrew College and Rector of the Hebrew College Rabbinical School. He is also Emeritus Professor of Jewish Thought at Brandeis University. A central figure in the field of Jewish thought, Green has written on aspects of Jewish mysticism, spirituality, and theology from biblical times to the present. Green lectures throughout North America on a variety of topics relating to the general theme of Jewish spirituality and its renewal. His areas of expertise include Hasidism and he wrote the acclaimed Tormented Master: the Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1992). His other books include Keter: the Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism (Princeton University Press, 1997), and The Language of Truth: Teaching from the Sefat Emet (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1998). His most recent work, A Guide to the Zohar, is published by Stanford University Press. Green’s Seek My Face: a Jewish Mystical Theology (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2003) recently appeared in a revised second edition. Professor Green is the former president of Pennsylvania’s Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. (read abstract)
Vincent Harding
Vincent G. Harding, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. Before going to Iliff in 1981, Harding taught at Pendle Hill Study Center, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Spelman College. His publications include The Other American Revolution (1980), There Is a River, Vol. 1 (1981), Hope and History (1990), Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (1996), and We Changed the World (with R. Kelly and E. Lewis) (1997). Harding has had a long history of involvement in domestic and international movements for peace and justice, including the southern Black freedom struggle. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center in Atlanta and served as director and chairperson of The Institute of the Black World. Harding retired from Iliff in May 2004. He continues to serves as co-chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal at Iliff.
Susannah Heschel
Susannah Heschel is the Eli Black Associate Professor of Jewish Studies in the Religion Department at Dartmouth College. She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Colorado College in 2005. Her expertise focuses on Jewish-Christian relations in Germany during the 19th and 20th centuries. Her publications include Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (University of Chicago Press, 1998), The Aryan Jesus: Christians, Nazis and the Bible (Princeton University Press, forthcoming), and she has edited several volumes. (read abstract)
Moshe Idel
Moshe Idel is a professor at the Institute of Jewish Studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His publications include Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah (Judaica, Hermeneutics, Mysticism, and Religion) (SUNY Press, 1988), Kabbalah: New Perspectives (Yale University Press, 1990), Messianic Mystics (Yale University Press, 2000), Ascension on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders (Pasts Incorporated) (Central European University Press, 2005), Kabbalah and Eros (Yale University Press, 2005). (read abstract)
Edward K. Kaplan
Conference organizer, Edward K. Kaplan is Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities, and Research Associate at the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis University, where he has taught since 1978. He was the founding chair of the Brandeis Program in Religious Studies. In addition to his work in French literature, he has published essays on Martin Buber, Thomas Merton, Howard Thurman, and books on Abraham Joshua Heschel. His first book on Heschel, Holiness in Words. AJH’s Poetics of Piety (SUNY Press, 1996) was published in French translation in 1999. He helped organize a conference on Heschel in Paris in 2000, which appeared as a book in 2003. The conference he organized on Thomas Merton and Judaism was published in 2004 by Fons Vitae. He is completing the second and final volume of an intellectual and cultural biography of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Volume one, co-authored with the late Samuel Dresner, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Prophetic Witness (Yale University Press, 1998), was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards. Volume two, Spiritual Radical: AJH in America, 1940-1972, will appear in Spring 2007 with Yale University Press.
Reuven Kimelman
Reuven Kimelman, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. His special interests include contemporary Jewish life, ethics, Jewish-Christian relations, liturgical issues, and the Talmud. He teaches courses and directs doctoral work in Talmud, Midrash, liturgy, ethics and the Jewish political tradition. His focus is on the relationship between historical and literary analysis. One of his books, The Rhetoric of Jewish Prayer: a Literary and Historical Commentary on the Prayerbook, is to be published by The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, while another, The Mystical Meaning of Lekhah Dodi and the Welcoming of the Sabbath, was published in Hebrew by Magnes Press of the Hebrew University. He serves on the Executive Editorial Committee of The Cambridge University History of Judaism Volume 4:The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period and is responsible for its section on liturgy and the synagogue Professor Kimelman recently published an audio book: The Hidden Poetry of the Jewish Prayerbook: The What, How, and Why of the Jewish Liturgy. He was awarded a Lady Davis Fellowship for his sabbatical at the Hebrew University, where he will also serve as a fellow of the Sholom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem. He represented the Jewish community in Washington D.C. at the Catholic commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, and served in 2005 as an educator for the March of the Living in Poland and Israel.(read abstract)
Marty Wyngaarden Krauss
Marty Wyngaarden Krauss, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, is The John Stein Professor of Disability Research and Director of the Starr Center for Mental Retardation at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Since 2000, Dr. Krauss has served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Programs at the Heller School. Professor Krauss is the co-author of several books and the author of dozens of articles in professional journals and other publications. She has also served as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on numerous research projects funded by the federal government and private or corporate foundations. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Award for Research of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Association on Mental Retardation, the Christian Pueschel Memorial Research Award of the National Down Syndrome Congress and the Distinguished Service Award (for research) of the Massachusetts Association for Retarded Citizens, among others. Dr. Krauss also is a Fellow of the American Association on Mental Retardation. She was a member of the Brandeis 2000 Committee and chaired that body’s sub-committee on Faculty and Staff Compensation. She also chaired the search committees for the Dean of the Heller School and the Provost, and has served as a faculty representative to the Board of Trustees.
Morton Leifman
Morton M. Leifman, a graduate of the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), served JTS in several roles from 1959 until his retirement in 1999: including, as senior Vice President; dean of JTS’ H.L. Miller Cantorial School and professor of liturgy; dean of students of JTS’ undergraduate department. From 1959–1969, he also served as executive secretary of the Joint Bet Din of Conservative Judaism, mediating problematic situations of Jewish family law. His studies included a clerkship with Heschel, private instruction in Nusach (Jewish prayer chant) with Max Wohlberg of JTS and with Rabbi/Cantor Isaac Asseo, a leader of Sephardic Jewry in Europe. After retirement, Leifman translated Heschel’s first published work: 66 Yiddish poems published in Warsaw in 1933, The Ineffable Name of God: Man (Continuum, 2005). Currently, Leifman is translating sections of the liturgy from Hebrew to English for the Milken Archives of American Jewish Music.
Michael Lerner
Rabbi Michael Lerner was mentored by Abraham Joshua Heschel from the moment they met in 1956 till the time Lerner left the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1964, and it was this experience and the weekly meetings he had with Heschel that shaped his understanding of Judaism. Lerner received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California Berkeley and a second P.D. in clinical psychology, and subsequently became the editor of Tikkun magazine and the author of eleven books, including Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (which was described by theologian Harvey Cox as soon to "take its place alongside the works of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Buber" and by
Shaul Magid
Shaul Magid, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and The Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University. His teaching focuses on Kabbala, Hasidism and medieval and modern Jewish philosophy and his areas of interest and research include 16th century Kabbala, early Hasidism, 19th century Polish Hasidism, medieval pietism, gender and religion, Jewish ethics, and contemporary conceptions of Jewish religiosity, renewal and fundamentalism. He edited God's Voice from the Void: Old and New Essays on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (Suny Press, 2001), co-edited Beginning Again: Toward a Hermeneutic of Jewish Texts (Seven Bridges Press, 2002) and wrote Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica and Radzin Hasidism (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). He is currently writing a book titled From Theosophy to Midrash: Late Kabbala and the Interpretation of Scripture on scriptural hermeneutics in the mystical school of Rabbi Isaac Luria. He serves as a member of the board of The Society for Scriptural Reasoning and CHAI (The Children of Abraham Institute) dedicated to the pursuit of inter-faith dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims. (read abstract)
Aisha Y. Musa
Aisha Y. Musa is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Florida International University. Dr. Musa received her Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Harvard University. Professor Musa is fluent in English and Arabic, and has working knowledge of Persian, French and German. Since 1993, she has been the Islam Section Leader at CompuServe Information System Religion Forum, where she leads, and moderates discussions on Islam. (read abstract)
David Novak
David Novak is a Professor in the Philosophy Department and the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. He received his AB from Chicago, his MHL from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Georgetown. His publications include Talking With Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (Radical Traditions) (2005), The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People (1995), and Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification (1992).
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Joseph Reimer
Joseph B. Reimer is an associate professor in the Hornstein Program at Brandeis University and is founder and director of the Institute for Informal Jewish Education. His fields of expertise are the Jewish life cycle and identity, and Jewish education. Reimer received his masters degree from Brandeis University, his masters of education from Harvard University, and his education doctorate from Harvard University. His publications include Succeeding at Jewish Education: How One Synagogue Made It Work (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997), To Build a Profession: Careers in Jewish Education (Waltham: Brandeis University, 1987), and Promoting Moral Growth: From Piaget to Kohlberg with R. Hersh and D.O Paolitto (NewYork: Longman, 1979).
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Or Rose
Rabbi Or N. Rose is Associate Dean: Director of Informal Education at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He is the author of two books, God in All Moments: Spiritual & Practical Wisdom from the Hasidic Masters (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2003) and Abraham Joshua Heschel: Man of Spirit, Man of Action (Jewish Publication Society, 2003). Or is currently editing a volume on Judaism and social justice, and completing his doctoral thesis on early Hasidism at Brandeis University.
Jonathan Sarna
Jonathan Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor in American Jewish history in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University, and is additionally the chair of the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. His academic focus is on American Jewish history, religion and life. Sarna received his masters in Judaic Studies in 1975 from Brandeis University, his masters in history from Yale University in 1976, his masters of philosophy in history from Yale University in 1978, and his doctorate in history from Yale University in 1979. Sarna has published over twenty books and his recent publications include American Judaism: A History (Yale University Press, 2004), Jewish Polity and American Civil Society, co-edited with Alan Mittleman and Robert Licht (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), and The American Jewish Experience: A Reader (Holmes & Meier, 1986).
Leonard Saxe
Leonard Saxe is Professor of Jewish Community Research and Social Policy at Brandeis University. He serves as Director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute. Professor Saxe is a social psychologist, as well as a methodologist, and is concerned with the application of social science to social policy issues. His present focus is on religious and ethnic identity and specifically addresses issues relevant to the Jewish community. His past work includes a variety of evaluative and policy-focused studies of education, mental health issues, and drug/alcohol abuse. Professor Saxe's current research on the Jewish community involves socio-demographic studies of American Jewry and a program of research on Jewish education and its relationship to the Jewish engagement. In his role at the Cohen Center, he is the principal investigator of a longitudinal study of birthright israel, a large scale educational program. At the Steinhardt Institute, he leads a set of studies investigating the size and characteristics of the American Jewish population. Among his recent publications, he is co-author of a 2004 book, How Goodly are Thy Tents, an exploration of how summer camps socialize children. Professor Saxe is an author and/or editor of nearly 250 publications. He has been a Science Fellow for the United States Congress and was a Fulbright Professor at Haifa University, Israel. In 1989, he was awarded the American Psychological Association’s prize for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest, Early Career. He teaches in the Hornstein Program for Jewish Professional Leadership and at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. (read abstract)
Eugene Sheppard
Eugene Sheppard is Associate Professor of Modern Jewish History and Thought, and Assistant Director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis University. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA in the department of History in 2001. He is currently writing Leo Strauss and the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher, co-editing another volume on Simon Rawidowicz with David N. Myers, and contributing to the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Jewish Philosophy and the Oxford Companion to Jewish Thought.
Barry Shrage
Since 1987, Barry Shrage has served as President of the country's oldest federated charity, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP). He brings to the position a unique blend of vision, energy, optimism and enthusiasm that has earned him an international reputation. Mr. Shrage led development of CJP's Strategic Plan, a bold initiative that called for CJP to develop communities of learning, caring and social justice through innovative partnerships with communal service agencies and synagogues. The pioneering Me’ah project, which he developed with David Gordis of the Hebrew College, is a unique adult learning program designed to being universal Jewish literacy to the region. Hundreds are enrolled in classes throughout Greater Boston, and thousands have graduated the two-year program. A graduate of City College of New York, Mr. Shrage holds a masters degree in social work from Boston University. He has written extensively on Jewish identity, continuity, social justice, and the Jewish renaissance. He and his wife Ellie have two children. (read abstract)
Gordon Tucker
Gordon Tucker is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York. He is also Adjunct Assistant Professor of Jewish Philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He recently translated and annotated the first English language rendition of A.J. Heschel's Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations (Continuum, 2005), together with Leonard Levin. (read abstract)
Steve Zipperstein
Steven J. Zipperstein is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History and Director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University. He has written several award-winning books, and many articles. Among his books are The Jews of Odessa (1985), Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism (1993), Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity (1999), and The Worlds of S. An-sky: A Russian Jewish Intellectual at the Turn of the Century, edited with Gabriella Safran (2006). He is currently finishing a biographical study of the American Jewish novelist and essayist Isaac Rosenfeld, and he is at work on a cultural history of Russian and East European Jewry from the 18th century to the present. He is an editor of Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, and Society.