David Ellenson, Rabbi, Ph.D. (Display Directory Entry)

President;
I.H. and Anna Grancell Professor of Jewish Religious Thought


Dr. David Ellenson, President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and I.H. and Anna Grancell Professor of Jewish Religious Thought, is internationally recognized for his publications and research in the areas of Jewish religious thought, ethics, and modern Jewish history. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1981 and was ordained by HUC-JIR in 1977. He is a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem and a Fellow and Lecturer at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Rabbi Ellenson's extensive publications include Tradition in Transition: Orthodoxy, Halakhah and the Boundaries of Modern Jewish History (1989), Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy (1990) (nominated for the National Jewish Book Council's award for outstanding book in Jewish History, 1990), Between Tradition and Culture: The Dialectics of Jewish Religion and Identity in the Modern World (1994), After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity (2004), which won the National Jewish Book Council's Award as the outstanding book in Jewish Thought in 2005, and Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in 19th- and 20th-Century Orthodox Responsa, co-authored with Daniel Gordis (2012).

Areas of Expertise
  • Modern Orthodoxy
  • Judaism's responses to modernity
Education
  • Ordained, HUC-JIR (1977)
  • Ph.D., Columbia University (1981)

Books
  • Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa, co-authored with Daniel Gordis (Stanford University Press, 2012).
  • After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity (HUC-Press) order through HUC Press or 513-221-1875 ext. 3293.
  • Between Tradition and Culture: The Dialectics of Jewish Religion and Identity in the Modern World (Scholar's Press: 1994).
  • Bits of Honey: Essays for Samson H. Levey (Scholar's Press: 1993) Co-edited with Stanley Chyet.
  • Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modem Jewish Orthodoxy (University of Alabama Press: 1990). Nominated for the National Jewish Book Council's Award for outstanding book in Jewish History, 1990.
  • Tradition in Transition: Orthodoxy. Halakhah and the Boundaries of Modem Jewish Identity (University Press of America: 1989).

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