Faculty

Jewish Studies Faculty

Rachel Adelman, adjunct instructor of Hebrew Bible, provides a dynamic, open approach to text study, drawing on a wide range of sources, from Tanakh and classical midrash to modern Israeli poetry. Having completed her M.A. in Jewish studies at Matan/Baltimore Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Adelman went on to pursue a doctorate in Hebrew Literature (with a specialty in midrash) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which was awarded in the spring of 2008. She subsequently wrote a book based on her dissertation: The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha (Leiden: Brill 2009).

Dr. Adelman has taught Tanakh and midrash at Matan (The Sadie Rennert Women’s Institute for Torah Study), the Conservative Yeshiva, Pardes, and the Rothberg School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During Academic Year 2011-12, she will be working on her second academic book — The Female Ruse: Women’s Deception and Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible – as a Research Associate in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. She will join the Hebrew College faculty officially as Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Fall of 2012.

Edward Breuer, Visiting Associate Professor of Jewish history, teaches Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Canadian born and bred, he has a BA from Concordia University and an AM and Ph.D. from Harvard. After teaching in the U.S. for almost fifteen years, he and his family moved to Israel in 2001. Eddy's work focuses on medieval and modern Jewish intellectual history, specializing in the Jewish Enlightenment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Reuven Cohn, adjunct instructor of Rabbinics, received his rabbinic ordination as well as an MS in Jewish Education from Yeshiva University and an MA in Jewish Studies from Harvard University. He also received a law degree from Yale Law School. After practicing law for many years, he now teaches numerous adult education classes in the Boston area, serving a wide array of audiences and students. Reuven is an experienced teacher using distance learning methodologies, and has a loyal following of students who study with him in person at Hebrew College. A Boston native, he is also on the faculty of Maimonides School in Brookline.

Abigail Gillman is Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature at Boston University, where she teaches modern German and Hebrew literature, Hebrew Bible, and modern Jewish writing. As adjunct instructor of Hebrew literature at Hebrew College, she teaches courses on modern Jewish literature via distance learning. She has taught adult education courses at Hebrew College (Me’ah, Me’ah Graduate Institute), the Rashi School, and Temple Emanuel. Her research focuses on German Jewish culture, bible translation, the art and architecture of memory, and on the historic dialogue between two languages and literatures, German and Hebrew. She is the author of Viennese Jewish Modernism: Freud, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler and Beer-Hofmann (Penn State UP, 2008), and is currently writing a cultural history of German Jewish Bible translation from 1783 to 1961.

Barry Mesch is Provost and Stone/Teplow Families' Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew College. He holds a B.S. from Columbia University, a B.R.E. from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D from Brandeis University. Dr. Mesch’s work focuses on medieval and modern Jewish thought; theology and the Holocaust; and the history of biblical interpretation. As Provost, Dr. Mesch oversees the Academic Programs of the College and takes special responsibility for the Jewish studies and Hebrew language programs. In 2001, he guided the creation and administration of the first online Master of Arts program in Jewish Studies on the Internet Prior to his arrival at Hebrew College in 1990, Dr. Mesch had a twenty-year career as the founding director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville. During this time, he was instrumental in acquiring several large collections of Judaica for the University. These became the Isser and Ray Price Library, the largest Judaica collection in the southeast. His book, Joseph Ibn Caspi, Fourteenth Century Philosopher and Exegete was published in 1975.

Judith Pinnolis, adjunct instructor of Jewish Music at Hebrew College, received her B.A. in Music from Newcomb College of Tulane University, a Master in Music from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, and her M.S. in Library Science from Simmons College. She studied Yiddish at Columbia University and Brandeis. In addition to her library work, Judith teaches courses in Jewish music and Jewish history through film at Brandeis. She is currently Chair of the Jewish Music Roundtable of the Music Library Association; Past-Chair of Chapters Council of ACRL (the Association of College and Research Libraries); member of the Leadership Council of ACRL of the American Library Association; and Past-President for ACRL/New England. Her scholarly publications include: “Cantor Soprano” Julie Rosewald: The Musical Career of a Jewish American “New Woman” published in The American Jewish Archives Journal; 13 articles in Encyclopedia Judaica (2006), articles in Women and Music in America Since 1900: An Encyclopedia (2002), and The Reader's Guide to Judaism (2000). She published an extensive article on Miriam Gideon (2004), and a bibliography on Jewish music (2002) in Musica Judaica. She is also an author and editor of the website The Jewish Music WebCenter.

N ehemia Polen is Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew College. He is the author of The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto, and is a contributing commentator to My People’s Prayer Book, a multi-volume Siddur incorporating diverse perspectives on the liturgy. He received his Ph.D. from Boston University, where he studied with and served as teaching fellow for Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. In 1994 he was Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellow at Harvard University, and has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is an ordained rabbi and served a congregation for twenty-three years. In 1998-9 he was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, working on the writings of Malkah Shapiro (1894-1971), the daughter of a noted Hasidic master, whose Hebrew memoirs focus on the spiritual lives of women in the context of pre-war Hasidism in Poland. The research culminated in his book, The Rebbe’s Daughter, recipient of a National Jewish Book Award. He teaches and lectures on Hasidic spirituality, tales and melodies (niggunim); sacred time and place in Judaism; enriching prayer life; and the meaning of the book of Leviticus. Professor Polen’s current research focuses on early Rabbinic mysticism.

Peretz Rodman is a Jewish educator, writer, and translator based in Jerusalem. He earned degrees in Jewish studies at Hebrew College (B.H.L.) and Brandeis University (B.A., M.A.) and received rabbinic ordination from the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem. He was a member of the inaugural cohort of Jerusalem Fellows and has taught in Jewish day schools and summer camps, at Jewish and Christian theological schools, and at universities in the U.S. and Israel. When not teaching, he can be found working on a book on conflict resolution in biblical narrative, or writing poetry in Hebrew.

Solomon Schimmel is Professor of Jewish Education and Psychology at Hebrew College, Newton, MA. He is the author of three books, The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth; Wounds Not Healed by Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness; and The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology, (all published by Oxford University Press), and numerous articles and book chapters on Jewish thought, psychology of religion, and Jewish education. He was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, England in 1998, where he researched the concepts and practices of repentance and forgiveness in the Abrahamic religions, in psychology, and in moral and legal philosophy. Dr. Schimmel has been a National Science Foundation Research Fellow at Harvard University, and a Visiting Professor at Brandeis, Bar-Ilan, and Hebrew Universities, and most recently, a Visiting Scholar at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan and at Shalom College in Sydney, Australia.

Neil Schwartz grew up in Northern Minnesota, and has degrees from Carleton College (1975) and the Jewish Theological Seminary (1980). As Hazzan, he serves as "Kol Bo" for a synagogue in Saskatoon, Canada, and he has also completed several units of CPE hospital Chaplaincy training there. Hazzan Schwartz is the Jewish Chaplain for the University of Saskatchewan, and a Board Member of Multi-Faith Saskatoon. Nationally, he is a member of the Cantors Assembly; the American Conference of Cantors; and NewCAJE, the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, for which he presents annual workshops. In addition to teaching classes in Trope and Nusach via distance learning for Hebrew College, Hazzan Schwartz has been a Scholar-in-Residence, and he has taught the United Synagogue IMUN Program for adult lay religious leaders. He also notates Nusach and Trope for Kinnor Software.