Rabbinical School Faculty

Rabbi Arthur Green, PhD, Rector
Art Green is recognized as one of the world's preeminent authorities on Jewish thought and spirituality. In addition to his Rabbinical School role as Rector, he serves as Irving Brudnick Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Hebrew College and is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University. Previously, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where he served as Dean and President from 1984 to 1993. A prolific author, Dr. Green has published Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2002) and A Guide to the Zohar (Stanford University, 2003); his next book, Radical Judaism, is scheduled for publication by Yale University Press in 2010. He lectures widely at universities and Jewish communities throughout North America, as well as in Israel, where he visits each year. Dr. Green received his BA and PhD from Brandeis and an MHL and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. 

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Dean
Sharon Cohen Anisfeld has been Dean of the Rabbinical School since 2006.  Prior to assuming this position, she served as an adjunct faculty member at the Rabbinical School and then as Dean of Students. She graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1990, and subsequently spent 15 years working in pluralistic settings as a Hillel rabbi at Tufts, Yale and Harvard. She has been a summer faculty member for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel since 1993. She is the co-editor of two volumes of women's writings on Passover, The Women's Seder Sourcebook and The Women's Passover Companion. 

Dr. David Bernat, PhD
David Bernat, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Bible, received his BA from the Jewish Theological Seminary and his PhD in Biblical Studies from Brandeis University. He is co-editor of Religion and Violence: The Biblical Heritage, and author of the forthcoming Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Priestly Traditions.  

Harvey Bock, JD
Harvey Bock, Adjunct Lecturer in Hebrew, is a graduate of the Yeshivah of Flatbush; Yale College, where he majored in linguistics; and Yale Law School. After more than twenty years of practicing law, with a specialty in banking regulation (most recently as a senior vice president of Morgan Stanley and general counsel of its Discover Card division), he embarked in 2001 upon a second career at Hebrew College as a teacher of Hebrew language and Aramaic, an area of study in which he has long maintained an intense interest. He has translated several books, articles and poems from Hebrew into English.

Merle Feld
Merle Feld's prose and poetry appear in numerous anthologies and prayerbooks and in her memoir, A Spiritual Life: Exploring the Heart and Jewish Tradition (SUNY Press, 2007). Her award-winning plays include Across the Jordan (in Syracuse University Press's anthology Making a Scene), and The Gates are Closing, performed by hundreds of congregations worldwide. Ms. Feld has facilitated Israeli-Palestinian dialogue on the West Bank and at Seeds of Peace, and has worked with grassroots community organizers in the former Soviet Union. She is Founding Director of the Rabbinic Writing Institute, guiding rabbinical students at five seminaries across the denominations to develop and explore their own inner lives and to serve more effectively as spiritual leaders.   

Rabbi Dan Judson
Dan Judson, Placement Consultant, is currently a doctoral student in Jewish history at Brandeis University. Prior to coming to the Rabbinical School, he served for ten years as the spiritual leader at Temple Beth David in Canton, Mass. In 2003, he was the Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellow at Harvard University.  He has co-authored a number of books on Jewish rituals, including The Rituals and Practices of a Jewish Life: A Handbook for Personal Spiritual Renewal and The Jewish Pregnancy Book: A Resource for the Soul, Body and Mind During Pregnancy, Birth, and the First Three Months. His articles on Jewish history have appeared in the American Jewish Archives Journal.   

Rabbi Jane Kanarek, PhD
Jane Kanarek is Assistant Professor of Rabbinics at Hebrew College. She earned her AB from Brown University, rabbinic ordination from JTS and a PhD from the University of Chicago. In addition to her teaching in the Rabbinical School, she helps run the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, an intensive Talmud program for campers and college-age staff. 

Dr. Judith Kates, PhD
Judith Kates, Professor of Jewish Women’s Studies, comes to the teaching of Tanakh and midrash from the study of literature. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, where she also taught and developed a lifelong interest in Women's Studies. She began a process of educating herself in Jewish sources about 25 years ago, which continues to this day. She has been a member of the Hebrew College faculty since 1992 and has taught in many programs of adult learning. She edited (with Gail Twersky Reimer), Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story and Beginning Anew: A Woman's Companion to the High Holy Days.  

Rabbi Alvan H. Kaunfer, EdD
Alvan Kaunfer, Adjunct Instructor in Jewish Education, served as Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, Providence, for 25 years, overseeing educational programming. Dr. Kaunfer was also the founding Director of the Alperin Schechter Day School in Providence. He earned his BA from Brandeis University and BJEd from Hebrew College, his MA from Columbia University Teachers’ College and he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also earned a doctoral degree in education. He has published articles in several professional journals and books.  

Dr. Jonathan Klawans, PhD
Jonathan Klawans, Visiting Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Rabbinical School, is also Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University, where he has served on the faculty of the BU Department of Religion and the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies since 1997. Dr. Klawans is a specialist in the religion and religious literature of Judaism in late antiquity. He teaches courses in Western Religion, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish history and rabbinic literature. He has published articles in journals such as AJS Review, Harvard Theological Review, Journal of Jewish Studies, New Testament Studies, and Religious Studies Review. Dr. Klawans earned his BA from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, his MA from New York University and PhD from Columbia University.

Rabbi Karen Landy
Visiting Instructor in Pastoral Counseling, Karen Landy earned her BA from Connecticut College, an MA from Brandeis University, and an MA and Rabbinic Ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. 

Rabbi Ebn Leader
Ebn Leader is Director of the Rabbinical School’s Bet Midrash and Instructor in Rabbinics. He grew up in Jerusalem and was a talmid (student-disciple) of Rabbi David Hartman, with whom he learned Talmud, and a talmid of Amos Hetz, studying movement and movement notation. He is currently a talmid of Dr. Art Green, from whom he has received semikha. He is the co-editor of God in All Moments: Mystical and Practical Wisdom from Hasidic Masters, published by Jewish Lights.

Rabbi Allan Lehmann
Allan Lehmann counsels, teaches and advises rabbinical students in a number of settings as Associate Dean of the Rabbinical College—in his office, in the Bet Midrash, in the classroom and all together as a learning community. He earned his BA from Columbia University, his MA from Temple University and Rabbinic Ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Before coming to Hebrew College in 2007, he served as the Jewish Chaplain and Rabbinic Hillel Director at Brandeis University for seven years. Previously he was the rabbi of a Conservative synagogue in Gainesville, Florida, for over twenty years. Minyan Olat Shabbat often meets at his (and Joanne Schindler’s) house in Newton Centre on Friday evenings.

Rabbi Carl Perkins, JD
Carl Perkins, Adjunct Instructor of Rabbinics, teaches a third year course in Hilchot Aveilut and a fourth year course in Hilchot Nezikin. He was educated at Haverford College, Harvard Law School and The Jewish Theological Seminary, where he earned an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics and Rabbinic Ordination. Since 1991, he has served as Rabbi of Temple Aliyah, a Conservative congregation in Needham. He is the author of the revised edition of Embracing Judaism, an introduction to Judaism for Jews by choice.

Rabbi Nehemia Polen, PhD
Nehemia Polen is Professor of Jewish Thought and Director of the Hasidic Text Institute at Hebrew College. Author of The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto (Jason Aronson, 1994, 1999), he is also contributing commentator to My People’s Prayer Book (Jewish Lights), a multi-volume siddur incorporating diverse perspectives on the liturgy that recently won a National Jewish Book Award. He received his PhD from Boston University, where he studied with and served as teaching fellow for Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. In 1998–1999 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 (Jewish Publication Society, 2002), recipient of a National Jewish Book Award. His most recent work is Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer (with Lawrence Kushner), Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004. Ordained as a rabbi at the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Md., he served as a congregational rabbi for 23 years prior to his career in Jewish academia. 

Rabbi Or N. Rose
Or Rose is Associate Dean and Director of Informal Education at the Rabbinical School. Author and Jewish social activist, Rabbi Rose is a co-editor of Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (Jewish Lights, 2008) and organizer of the Righteous Indignation Project, author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: Man of Spirit, Man of Action (JPSA, 2003), and a regular contributor to Tikkun Magazine. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he directs interfaith and social justice programs at Hebrew College.

Dr. Solomon Schimmel, PhD
Sol Schimmel is Professor of Jewish Education and Psychology at Hebrew College. A prolific author and lecturer, he is the author of Wounds Not Healed by Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness, The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology, and, most recently, The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth, all published by Oxford University Press. He was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, England in 1998. Dr. Schimmel received his BA from the City College of New York and MA and PhD from Wayne State University, and has been a National Science Foundation Research Fellow at Harvard University, and a Visiting Professor at Brandeis, Bar-Ilan and Hebrew Universities. 

Dr. Susan Shevitz, EdD
Susan Shevitz is Adjunct Instructor in Practical Rabbinics at the Rabbinical School and Professor Emerita at the Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service at Brandeis University. She received her BA from Columbia University, BHL from the Jewish Theological Seminary and EdD from Harvard University. She is a senior research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis. Dr. Shevitz’s research focuses on the characteristics that foster—or impede—excellence in Jewish community organizations. She has taught, published articles and authored materials for professional education in the areas of Jewish family education, evaluation, communal and organizational change and leadership. Her current research is on pluralism in Jewish education.  

Cantor Scott Sokol, PhD
Scott Sokol is the Bernard J. Korman Professor of Jewish Special Education at Hebrew College. Prior to this appointment, he served as Dean of the Jewish Music Institute, now the School of Jewish Music, and was the founding Director of both the Cantor-Educator Program and Special Education Program at the College. He works part-time as a cantor and pediatric neuropsychologist. He has a BA from Brandeis University, MA and PhD degrees from Johns Hopkins University and a MSM and Cantorial Investiture from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Neuropsychology and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Cantor Sokol is past recipient of a Young Psychologist Award from the American Psychological Association, a Fulbright Scholar and Wexner Fellow. He has served on the executive council of the Cantors Assembly of America and is the past editor of the Journal of Synagogue Music. He is the cofounder of Koleinu, Hebrew College's community choir, and Sheminiyah, and concertizes widely.

Rabbi David B. Starr, PhD
David Starr, Vice President for Community Education at Hebrew College and Assistant Professor of Jewish History, is an expert on the subjects of modern Jewish history, Jewish education and adult Jewish learning in America. The Me'ah adult learning program has grown significantly under Dr. Starr's leadership, and his writings set forth Me'ah as a model of Jewish education for lay and professional leadership nationwide. He is also a leading scholar on the life and work of Solomon Schechter (the founder of the Conservative Movement) and has published numerous papers and articles on Schechter. A popular lecturer for six years in the Hornstein Program for Jewish Communal Service at Brandeis University, Dr. Starr also instructed members of the Jewish Labor Committee for seven years. He was a rabbinic advisor to the Student Conservative Minyan at Harvard Radcliffe Hillel from 1994 to 1999. Prior to joining the Hebrew College faculty in 1994, he was Associate Rabbi at Temple Israel of Great Neck, N.Y. He received a BA from the University of Minnesota, an MA and PhD from Columbia University, and an MA and rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. 

Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, PhD
Jonah Steinberg is Associate Dean, Director of Academic Development and Advising for the Rabbinical School and Assistant Professor of Rabbinics. Dr. Steinberg earned his BA from Brown University, his MA and PhD from Columbia Univeristy, and rabbinical ordination from Hebrew College. In 1997, he was invited to join the teaching faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he taught halakha and Talmud for two years. While in graduate school, he also taught courses for the Academy of Jewish Religion in New York. He was a Finkelstein Dissertation Fellow at the University of Judaism-Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in 2000, then taught rabbinic textual studies for three years at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College before joining the faculty of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. 

Rabbi Sara Zacharia
Rabbi Sara Zacharia graduated from the Zeigler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles in 1999—the first class ordained on the West Coast. She earned her BA and MS from Brooklyn College, as well as an MA from the Ziegler School. Since coming to Boston, she has served both in synagogue and educational settings, and is the Admissions Coordinator as well as a Bet Midrash Instructor at the Rabbinical School. She is often invited to teach and to serve as rabbi to the Greater Boston community, and has led a Rosh Hodesh group for the past three years.