37 Notable alumni of
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Updated:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America is 1179th in the world, 422nd in North America, and 395th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 37 notable alumni from Jewish Theological Seminary of America sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Bella Abzug
- Occupations
- politicianlawyersocial activist
- Biography
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Bella Savitzky Abzug, nicknamed "Battling Bella", was an American lawyer, politician, social activist, and a leader in the women's movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus. She was a leading figure in what came to be known as eco-feminism.
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Chaim Potok
- Occupations
- translatorwriterBible translatorplaywrightscreenwriter
- Biography
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Chaim Potok was an American author, novelist, playwright, editor and rabbi. Of the more than dozen novels he authored, his first book The Chosen (1967), was listed on The New York Times’ bestseller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies and which was adapted into a well-received 1981 feature film by the same title.
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Henrietta Szold
- Occupations
- writerteacher
- Biography
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Henrietta Szold was an American-born Jewish Zionist leader and founder of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. In 1942, she co-founded Ihud, a political party in Mandatory Palestine dedicated to a binational solution.
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Norman Podhoretz
- Occupations
- journalistwriterpunditopinion journalist
- Biography
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Norman Podhoretz is an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator, who identifies his views as "paleo-neoconservative", but only "because (he's) been one for so long". He is a writer for Commentary magazine, and previously served as the publication's editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1995.
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Mordecai Kaplan
- Occupations
- university teacherdiaristtranslatorphilosopheressayist
- Biography
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Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was a Lithuanian-born American rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian, philosopher, activist, and religious leader who founded the Reconstructionist branch of Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein. He has been described as a "towering figure" in the recent history of Judaism for his influential work in adapting it to modern society, contending that Judaism should be a unifying and creative force by stressing the cultural and historical character of the religion as well as theological doctrine.
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Abraham Foxman
- Occupations
- authorlawyer
- Biography
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Abraham Henry Foxman is an American lawyer and activist. He served as the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1987 to 2015, and is currently the League's national director emeritus. From 2016 to 2021 he served as vice chair of the board of trustees at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City in order to lead its efforts on antisemitism.
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David Wolpe
- Occupations
- rabbiinternational forum participant
- Biography
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David J. Wolpe is an American rabbi. He is Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School and the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. Wolpe was named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek in 2012, and among the 500 most influential Angelinos in 2016 and 2018. Wolpe now serves as the Inaugural rabbinic fellow for the ADL, and a Senior Advisor for the Maimonides Fund. Wolpe was appointed and then resigned from the Harvard Antisemitism advisory committee in Dec. 2023, in a post that went viral with over 7.5 million views on "X" https://twitter.com/RabbiWolpe/status/1732847411175796747?lang=en. He subsequently appeared widely exploring antisemitism on podcasts like Sam Harris "Making Sense" among many others, and was widely quoted in the news discussing the situation and his decision.
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Michael Schudrich
- Occupations
- rabbihistorian
- Biography
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Michael Joseph Schudrich is an American rabbi and the current Chief Rabbi of Poland. He is the oldest of four children of Rabbi David Schudrich and Doris Goldfarb Schudrich.
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Shalom H. Schwartz
- Occupations
- lectureruniversity teacherpsychologist
- Biography
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Shalom H. Schwartz is a social psychologist, cross-cultural researcher and creator of the Theory of Basic Human Values (universal values as latent motivations and needs). He also contributed to the formulation of the values scale in the context of social learning theory and social cognitive theory.
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David Weiss Halivni
- Enrolled in Jewish Theological Seminary of America
- In 1958 graduated with doctorate in Talmud
- Occupations
- educatortalmudisttheologianrabbi
- Biography
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David Weiss Halivni was a European-born American-Israeli rabbi, scholar in the domain of Jewish sciences, and Professor of Talmud. He served as Reish Metivta of the Union for Traditional Judaism's rabbinical school.
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Albert L. Lewis
- Occupations
- rabbiwriter
- Biography
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Rabbi Albert L. Lewis was a leading American Conservative rabbi, scholar, and author; President of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the international organization of Conservative rabbis; and Vice-President of The World Council of Synagogues. In 2009, the award-winning author, Mitch Albom, wrote about Lewis, his childhood rabbi, as the main character in the non-fiction book, Have a Little Faith. The book, hailed as a story of faith that inspires faith in others, concludes with the eulogy that Albom delivered at Lewis's funeral, on February 12, 2008.
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Ilan Stavans
- Enrolled in Jewish Theological Seminary of America
- Graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- comics writerwriterlexicographeruniversity teacherjournalist
- Biography
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Ilan Stavans is an American writer and academic. He writes and speaks on American, Hispanic, and Jewish cultures. He is the author of Quixote (2015) and a contributor to the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010). He was the host of the syndicated PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans, which ran from 2001 to 2006.
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Daniel Gordis
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Daniel Gordis is an American-born Israeli author and speaker, who is best known as a passionate advocate of Israel. He is Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem, where he previously also served as Senior Vice President and Chair of the Core Curriculum, until his retirement from those positions. The author of a dozen books on Judaism and Israel, and twice awarded the National Jewish Book Award (including Book of the Year for his history of Israel), The Forward has called Gordis "one of the most influential Israel analysts around." Gordis is also the author of the blog and podcast, Israel from the Inside, which is published on Substack.
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Arthur Green
- Years
- 1941-.. (age 83)
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Arthur Green is an American scholar of Jewish mysticism and Neo-Hasidic theologian. He was a founding dean of the non-denominational rabbinical program at Hebrew College in Boston. He describes himself as an American Jew who was educated entirely by the generation of immigrant Jewish intellectuals cast up on American shores by World War II.
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Abraham Skorka
- Occupations
- priestwriterchemistphysicistrabbi
- Biography
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Abraham Skorka is an Argentine biophysicist, rabbi and book author. He is rector emeritus of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, the rabbi of the Jewish community Benei Tikva, professor of biblical and rabbinic literature at the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano and honorary professor of Hebrew Law at the Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires.
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Gordon Tucker
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Gordon Tucker is a prominent rabbi, with a reputation as both a political and a theological liberal in Conservative Judaism. He is the former senior rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York. Since September 2020, he has served as the Vice Chancellor for Religious Life and Engagement at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
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Joseph Hertz
- Occupations
- translatorwriterrabbi
- Biography
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Joseph Herman Hertz was a British Rabbi and biblical scholar. He held the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1913 until his death in 1946, in a period encompassing both world wars and the Holocaust.
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Arnold Resnicoff
- Occupations
- military officerrabbi
- Biography
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Arnold E. Resnicoff is an American Conservative rabbi who served as a military officer and military chaplain. He served in Vietnam and Europe before attending rabbinical school. He then served as a U.S. Navy Chaplain for almost 25 years. He promoted the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and delivered the closing prayer at its 1982 dedication. In 1984 the President of the United States spoke on his eyewitness account of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. After retiring from the military he was National Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee and served as Special Assistant (for Values and Vision) to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, serving at the equivalent military rank of Brigadier General.
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Marshall Meyer
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer was an American Conservative rabbi who became a recognized international human rights activist while living and working in Argentina from 1958 to 1984, during the period of the "Dirty War" in the 1970s. He was elected by president Raúl Alfonsín to be one of the members of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons. After the restoration of democracy in 1983, Meyer was awarded the nation's highest honor, the Order of the Liberator General San Martín, by the new president.
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Louis Finkelstein
- Occupations
- rabbiRabbinic literature scholar
- Biography
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Louis Finkelstein was a Talmud scholar, an expert in Jewish law, and a leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) and Conservative Judaism.
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Arthur Hertzberg
- Occupations
- rabbiwriter
- Biography
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Arthur Hertzberg was a Conservative rabbi and prominent Jewish-American scholar and activist.
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David Novak
- Occupations
- theologianuniversity teacherphilosopherrabbi
- Biography
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David Novak, is a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law (Halakha). He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto since 1997. His areas of interest are Jewish theology, Jewish ethics and biomedical ethics, political theory (with a special emphasis on natural law), and Jewish-Christian relations.
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Jacob Milgrom
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterrabbi
- Biography
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Jacob Milgrom was a prominent American Jewish Bible scholar and Conservative rabbi. Milgrom's major contribution to biblical research was in the field of cult and worship. Although he accepted the documentary hypothesis, contrary to the classical bible critics, he traced a direct line of development from the Priestly Code (P), to the Holiness Code (H), to the cultic innovations of Ezekiel, to the cultic writings of the Dead Sea sect and finally to Jewish law (halacha) of the Mishnah and Talmud. Best known for his comprehensive Torah commentaries and work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, he also published extensively on the Book of Ezekiel.
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Bradley Shavit Artson
- Occupations
- philosopherrabbi
- Biography
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Bradley Shavit "Brad" Artson is an American rabbi, author and speaker. He holds the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Dean's Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California, where he is also Vice-President. He supervises the Louis and Judith Miller Introduction to Judaism Program and provides educational and religious oversight for two Camp Ramah campuses, Ojai and Monterey Bay. He is Dean of the Zacharias Frankel College at the University of Potsdam in Germany, ordaining Conservative/Masorti rabbis for Europe.
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David Golinkin
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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David Golinkin is an American-born conservative rabbi and Jewish scholar who has lived in Jerusalem since 1972. He is President of the Schechter Institutes, Inc., President Emeritus of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and Professor of Jewish Law at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, Israel.
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Herman Berlinski
- Occupations
- choir directorpianistconductororganistcomposer
- Biography
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Herman Berlinski was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.
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Irwin Kula
- Years
- 1957-.. (age 67)
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Irwin Kula is an American rabbi and author, currently serving as the president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL). In 2008, he was listed as 7th in Newsweek’s “50 most influential rabbis” list, and the following year he was listed as #10.
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Steven Rubenstein
- Occupations
- anthropologist
- Biography
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Steven Lee Rubenstein was an American anthropologist. He was reader in Latin American Anthropology at the University of Liverpool, and Director of Liverpool's Research Institute of Latin American Studies.
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Einat Ramon
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Einat Ramon was the first Israeli-born woman to be ordained as a rabbi. She was also the first woman and the first sabra to head a Conservative rabbinical school, specifically the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem, where she was dean from 2005 to 2009. Since 2011 she no longer identifies as a rabbi, heads the Marpeh training program for spiritual caregivers in Jerusalem, and teaches modern Jewish thought and Jewish feminism at the Schechter Institute.
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Jacob Pressman
- Occupations
- rabbijournalist
- Biography
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Jacob "Jack" Pressman was an American Conservative rabbi. He served as the rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, California, from 1950 to 1985. He was a co-founder of the American Jewish University in Bel Air. He penned a weekly column in The Beverly Hills Courier, from 2004 to 2015.
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Jack Moline
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Jack Moline is an American Conservative rabbi who retired as executive director of Interfaith Alliance in 2022, having served in the post since January 2015.
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Ben Zion Bokser
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Ben-Zion Bokser was a major Conservative rabbi in the United States.
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Philip R. Alstat
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Philip Reis Alstat was a well-known American Conservative rabbi, teacher, chaplain, speaker and writer. Born in Kaunas (formerly, Kovno), Lithuania, he came to the United States in 1898, studying at City College of New York (A.B., 1912), Columbia University (A.M., 1915), and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), where he received semikhah, rabbinic ordination, in 1920, and the Doctor of Divinity degree (honoris causa), in 1966.
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Harry Halpern
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Harry Halpern was a Conservative Jewish educator and rabbi who for almost 49 years was the rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center (EMJC), in Brooklyn, New York.
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Seymour Siegel
- Years
- 1927-1988 (aged 61)
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Seymour Siegel, often referred to as "an architect of Conservative Jewish theology," was an American Conservative rabbi, a Professor of Ethics and Theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), the 1983-1984 Executive Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council," and an advisor to three American presidents, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.
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Rose Halprin
- Enrolled in Jewish Theological Seminary of America
- 1912-1913 studied education
- Occupations
- social worker
- Biography
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Rose Luria Halprin was an American Zionist leader and National President of the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America. In addition to her two terms as Hadassah president, she also served on the Zionist General Council, American Zionist Emergency Council, American Jewish Conference, and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. As part of the American section for the Jewish Agency, she was involved in discussions that led to the establishment of the State of Israel.
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Samuel Schafler
- Occupations
- rabbihistorian
- Biography
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Samuel Schafler was a New York-born rabbi, historian, editor and Jewish educator. He was Superintendent of the Board of Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago and President of Hebrew College in Brookline, Massachusetts.
