Our spring semester opens with renowned scholar and communal leader Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson in conversation with Jewish Studies Program Director James Loeffler. Professor Ellenson will share reflections on his time as a graduate student studying Judaism and religion at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s.
David Ellenson currently serves as Chancellor Emeritus as well as I.H. and Anna Grancell Professor Emeritus of Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He served as Director of the Schusterman Center of Israel Studies at Brandeis University from 2015-2018 and is currently Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis. From 2001-2013 Ellenson was President of HUC-JIR. Rabbi Ellenson's extensive publications include Tradition in Transition: Orthodoxy, Halakhah and the Boundaries of Modern Jewish History (1989), Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice (2014), and American Jewish Thought Since 1934 (2020).
In 1972 Ellenson graduated as the first M.A. student in Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. This event is the first in a new series of Jewish Studies Program talks with distinguished UVA alumni.