Shuly Rubin Schwartz is the Chancellor and Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History and Sala and Walter Schlesinger Dean of the Gershon Kekst Graduate School at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). Schwartz is the first woman elected as chancellor in the history of the seminary. [1]
Schwartz is a graduate of Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. [2] She wrote her Ph.D. dissertation at JTS under the direction of former JTS chancellor Ismar Schorsch.
She has served in many leadership positions at JTS including dean of the undergraduate program, List College (1993-2018) and dean of the Graduate School (2010-2020). [3] She is the first female chancellor appointed to serve at JTS [4] and was also the first woman who served as provost. [5]
Her first published book was The Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America: The Publication of the "Jewish Encyclopedia". Her second book, The Rabbi's Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life, was awarded a 2006 National Jewish Book Award. [6] [7] [8] She has published other articles and editorials in anthologies and publications. [9]
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies. The Jewish Theological Seminary Library is one of the most significant collections of Judaica in the world.
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.
Joel Roth is an American rabbi in the Rabbinical Assembly, which is the rabbinical body of Conservative Judaism. He is a former member and chair of the assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) which deals with questions of Jewish law and tradition, and serves as the Louis Finkelstein Professor of Talmud and Jewish Law at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City, where he formerly served as dean of the Rabbinical School. He is also Rosh Yeshiva of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel, an institution founded and maintained by the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism and under the academic auspices of JTS. In 2006, Roth took over as chair of the Hebrew Language department at JTS.
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.
Cyrus Adler was an American educator, Jewish religious leader and scholar.
Amy Eilberg is the first female rabbi ordained in Conservative Judaism. She was ordained in 1985 by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, one of the academic centers and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism.
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.
Arnold M. Eisen is an American Judaic scholar who was Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He stepped down at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. Prior to this appointment, he served as the Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 1986, he taught at Tel Aviv University and Columbia University.
Ismar Schorsch is the Chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and the Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Professor of Jewish history.
Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies, known simply as List College, is the undergraduate school of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). It was founded by Solomon Schechter in 1909 as the Teachers Institute with the original goal of training American Jewish educators. List College is closely affiliated with Columbia University; with all List College students enrolled in dual-degree programs at either Columbia University or Barnard College.
Daniel S. ("Danny") Nevins is an American rabbi and a leader in the Conservative Movement who is head of school at Golda Och Academy in West Orange, NJ On January 29, 2007, Rabbi Nevins was named the Dean of the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, succeeding Rabbi William Lebeau. In 2021, it was announced that Rabbi Nevins would be stepping down as dean of the JTS Rabbinical School. He was previously the spiritual leader of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills, Michigan, where he served for 13 years in his first pulpit. He is an authority on Jewish Law who co-authored a responsum that was passed by the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards paving the way for the Conservative Movement to allow gay marriage and to ordain lesbian and gay rabbis.
William Harry Lebeau is an American rabbi, former Dean of The Rabbinical School, Vice Chancellor and Chairman of the Department of Professional Skills, and Lecturer of Professional Skills at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America of Conservative Judaism in New York City.
Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue located at 6880 North Green Bay Road in Glendale, a suburb north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States.
Congregation Beth Israel is a Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 411 South Eighth Street, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Founded in 1907 to provide services for the High Holidays, it was then, and remains today, the only synagogue in the Lebanon area.
Alan Mittleman is a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Gerson David Cohen was a Jewish historian, a Conservative rabbi, and the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America from 1972–86. He was born in New York in 1924 and graduated from City College of New York in 1944. Cohen received his bachelor's degree, master's degree, and rabbinic ordination (1948) from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He received his Ph.D. in Semitic Languages at Columbia University in 1958.
Burton L. Visotzky is an American rabbi and scholar of midrash. He is the Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies, Emeritus at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS).
Sylvia Cutler Ettenberg was a Jewish educator at the forefront of many Conservative Jewish educational initiatives and was one of the founders of the Camp Ramah camping movement. A graduate of Brooklyn College and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), she was invited by JTS Chancellor Louis Finkelstein to join the JTS administration in 1946. Ettenberg served as registrar and oversaw the development of the Teachers Institute and Seminary College of JTS. Along with Rabbi Moshe Davis, a dean at JTS, she was responsible for establishing the Ramah camping movement as a program of JTS. She was also instrumental in founding JTS's supplementary high school (Prozdor) program, its Melton Research Center, and, later, its William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education, and she played a key role in the development of List College's joint program with Columbia University. Sylvia Ettenberg died on June 21, 2012
Erica Jan (Riki) Lippitz and Marla Rosenfeld Barugel were the first two female hazzans ordained in Conservative Judaism. Their ordination was held in 1987, two years after the first woman was ordained a Conservative rabbi.
Avis Clamitz Shulman (1908-1991) was a significant figure in the early history of women in the American rabbinate. In the 1920s, Clamitz enrolled in the Hebrew Union College (HUC) rabbinical program, graduating in 1927, and periodically served as a rabbi in an unofficial capacity for small congregations in Virginia. In some instances, newspaper reports would describe Clamitz as occupying the role of a rabbi. In 1935, and later in 1946, Clamitz was reported to have completed her studies and received ordination. However, according to later researchers, the HUC program granted Clamitz a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters in place of an ordination.