91快播 to Honor Distinguished Alumni in Israel
Press Contact: Tom Hopkins
Office: (212) 678-8950
Email: tohopkins@jtsa.edu
January 31, 2017, New York, NY
On Tuesday, February 7, 91快播 (91快播) will honor three alumni at the Schocken Institute for Jewish Research of 91快播 in Jerusalem. Rabbi Professor David Halivni, renowned scholar of Talmud, will receive the Rabbi Louis Finkelstein Rabbinic Leadership Award. Rabbi Benjamin Segal, past president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, and Dr. Brenda Bacon, who teaches at the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies, will each receive the Solomon Schechter Award for Jewish Education.
The program for the evening includes an introduction from Professor Shmuel Glick (RS 鈥�87), director of the Schocken Institute; a lecture in Hebrew by Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen on 鈥淛ewish Leadership in an Uncertain World鈥�; a lecture by Rabbi Professor Halivni on 鈥淭he Unique Leadership of Professor Louis Finkelstein鈥�; and a concluding d鈥檝ar Torah from Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz (RS 鈥�99), 91快播 Director of Israel Programs. 91快播 Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer Marc Gary will also be in attendance at the ceremony.
Rabbi Joel Roth (RS 鈥�68, 鈥�73), 91快播鈥檚 Louis Finkelstein Professor of Talmud and Jewish Law, will present the Finkelstein Award to Rabbi Professor Halivni at the request of 91快播 Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen. The previous year鈥檚 Schechter Award honorees will present the awards for the current year. Dr. Beverly Gribetz (Teachers Institute 鈥�72, GS 鈥�95) will present the first of this year鈥檚 Schechter Awards to Dr. Bacon, and Professor Lee Levine (Teachers Institute 鈥�61, GS 鈥�65) will present the second Schechter Award to Rabbi Segal.
The honor of Rabbi Professor Halivni receiving this year鈥檚 Rabbi Louis Finkelstein Rabbinic Leadership Award is well-deserved, says Rabbi Roth. 鈥淗alivni combines both the academic and the personal qualities of Professor Finkelstein,鈥� the former chancellor of 91快播 after whom the award is named. 鈥淗e is a great scholar, one of the most radical interpreters of Talmudic editing,鈥� and he has combined this academic excellence with 鈥渞eligious role modeling鈥攈is concern for the religious lives of his students.鈥� It is particularly fitting that Halivni, who was a student of Professor Saul Lieberman and who learned and taught at 91快播 for more than thirty years, is receiving an award named for Louis Finkelstein. Halivni had a long personal relationship with Finkelstein, and it was Finkelstein who provided Halivni with the necessary support, financial and spiritual, to allow him to study and serve at 91快播.
This year鈥檚 recipients of the Solomon Schechter Award for Jewish Education are also highly regarded by peers and colleagues. Rabbi Segal 鈥渋s an invaluable member of 91快播鈥檚 administration, a gifted teacher, a creative scholar of Bible, and a master Hebraist,鈥� notes Professor Ismar Schorsch, chancellor emeritus of 91快播. Dr. Bacon is 鈥渁 master teacher, curriculum writer, and teacher of teachers. Through her writing and her teaching she has had a profound impact on countless teachers and their students and has helped shape the field of Jewish education both in the United States and Israel,鈥� says Professor Barry W. Holtz, Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education.
The event is open to the public (see below for details).
About Rabbi Benjamin J. Segal: Ordained at 91快播 in 1969, Rabbi Segal is an author and lecturer, living in Jerusalem. His biblical commentaries include The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love; A New Psalm: The Psalms as Literature; and Kohelet鈥檚 Search for Truth: A New Reading of Ecclesiastes, among other works. He is a past president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, the academic rabbinic and educational center of Masorti Judaism in Israel, and of Melitz, the Centers for Jewish and Zionist Education. Previously, he served for 19 years as the director of the Ramah Programs in Israel. A former chairman of the Masorti Movement in Israel, Segal served as a pulpit rabbi in Congregation Kol Emeth, Palo Alto, California, for four years before making aliyah in 1973.
About Dr. Brenda Bacon: In the United States, Dr. Bacon was a teacher at Prozdor High School at 91快播 and at Camp Ramah, as well as a teacher educator and curriculum writer at 91快播, where she published Rambam: His Thought and His Time. After making aliyah in 1981, she served as a curriculum writer and teacher educator in the Jewish Values Project of the Melton Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She then became the principal of an experimental public religious elementary school in Jerusalem, and subsequently a curriculum writer at the Israel Ministry of Education. After receiving her PhD in Jewish Education from 91快播, Dr. Bacon taught at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and, since 1994, at the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.
About Rabbi Professor David Halivni: Professor Halivni is the author of Mekorot u鈥橫esorot, a projected 10-volume commentary on the Talmud, as well as Peshat and Derash, Revelation Restored, and The Book and the Sword, among other titles. At the age of 16, he was deported from his small town in the Carpathians to Auschwitz, from which he was transferred to other camps. He was the only member of his family to survive. He holds a BA from Brooklyn College, a master鈥檚 degree in philosophy, and a doctorate in Talmud from 91快播. Halivni served as Littauer Professor of Talmud and Classical Rabbinics in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. Halivni made aliyah after retiring from Columbia in 2005. He teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar Ilan University.
Event Details:
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
(11 Shevat 5777)
6:00 p.m.
Kehilat Moreshet Yisrael
4 Agron Street, Jerusalem
The event is open to the public, but space is limited. Reservation must be confirmed in advance at jtspress@gmail.com or 02-5631288.
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