The eight HUC-JIR rabbinical students; Justus Baird, Anne Brener, Ryan Bauer and Mark Miller from HUC-JIR/LA and Lisa Cohen, Dara Frimmer, Ruth Gelfarb and Stuart Seigal from HUC-JIR New York, who took part in the first rabbinical student delegation that spent a week working with the Salvadoran community in Ciudad Romero, a village founded by families that had been refugees in Panama in the years of struggles among El Salvador's government and army. The rabbinical students' trip to El Salvador was sponsored by the American Jewish World Service.

Dr. Eugene B. Borowitz (Sigmund L. Falk Distinguished Professor of Education and Jewish Religious Thought at HUC-JIR/NY) published, "The Pivotal Issue in a Century's Jewish Thought," which was published as the lead article in the winter issue of Conservative Judaism, 55.4, devoted to 20th century Jewish thought. The article “Our Shifting/Stable Task: From “Choosing a Sex Ethic to Today” was published in the winter issue of Judaism, issue 205/6, volume 52.

Dr. Marc Bregman (Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature HUC-JIR/Jerusalem) on his promotion to Professor of Rabbinic Literature.

Professor Gerald Bubis (Founding director of the School of Jewish Communal Service, HUC-JIR/LA) was honored by Peace Now with the Yitzhak Rabin Award and taught at the new Interdisciplinary Center in Herzlia.

The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education in Cincinnati received exhibition grants for its programs, including: Mapping Our Tears, a permanent interactive environmental theater, located on the gallery level of the Skirball Museum. The Cintas Farmer Family Foundation joined the Founding Benefactors and awarded a grant to the Center to expand Mapping Our Tears to include: WWII Liberators The Men in Uniform. The Center has been awarded a Fisher Family Grant, and a Grant from the Cincinnati Public Schools for the Community Outreach initiative, promoting and creating curriculum for Hana’s Suitcase. A Three Year Assessment of Holocaust Education in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky was recently concluded in an independent study by the University of Cincinnati Educational Services Evaluation Center. This was the first comprehensive study in U.S. history and clearly hails the need and demand for Holocaust education availability and curriculum needs.

Dr. Susan Einbinder (Professor of Medieval and Modern Hebrew Literature at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati, N’83) has been awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, which will allow her to pursue research for future publications. Einbinder was one of 185 artists, scholars and scientists selected from more than 3,200 applicants for the 2004 awards, which total $6.9 million. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi (Professor of Bible, HUC-JIR/LA) published the essays, "Song of Songs as an answer to Job" in David Clinesfestschrift, ed. J. Cheryl Exum and H. G. M. Williamson (Sheffield Academic Press, 2003) and "The Missions Of Ezra And Nehemiah," In Judah In The Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschitz (Eisenbrauns, 2004).

Dr. Eitan P. Fishbane (Assistant Professor of Jewish Religious Thought, HUC-JIR/LA) has been awarded the NEH Summer Stipend Award, which will help support work on his current book project, tentatively titled: Techniques of Mystical Practice: Isaac of Acre and Kabbalistic Contemplation in the 14th Century. He has been asked to deliver a paper entitled "Confession, Mystical Experience, and the Language of the Self" at this year's annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. His article "Authority, Tradition, and the Creation of Meaning in Medieval Kabbalah" appeared in the March 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He also participated in "Mystical Interpretation", a three-scholar interfaith and clergy symposium at Temple Emanu-El in New York City as part of a three-year series on mysticism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Professor Reuven Firestone (Professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam and Director of the Edgar F. Magnin School of Graduate Studies, HUC-JIR/LA) published several articles, including; "Martyrdom," in Palmer-Fernandez, G. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and War (1st ed.). New York: Berkshire/Routledge, forthcoming, 2004; "Judaism: Medieval Period," in Palmer-Fernandez, G. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and War (1st ed.). New York: Berkshire/Routledge, 2004; "Palestine/Israel," in Palmer-Fernandez, G. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and War (1st ed.). New York: Berkshire/Routledge, 2004; "Jihad," in Palmer-Fernandez, G. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and War (1st ed.). New York: Berkshire/Routledge, 2004;"Holy War Idea in the Biblical Tradition," in Palmer-Fernandez, G. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and War (1st ed.). New York: Berkshire/Routledge, 2004; "Argue, for God's Sake - Or, a Jewish Argument for Argument," in the Journal Of Ecumenical Studies, Special edition: "Inter religious Dialogue Toward Reconciliation in Macedonia and Bosnia." pp. 47-57;"The Qur'an and the Bible: Some Modern Studies of Their Relationship," in Bible And Qur'an: Essays In Scriptural Intertextuality, Ed. John C. Reeves. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003; "Midian," The Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, Leiden: E. J. Brill, Vol. 3(2003).

Dr. Lisa Grant (Associate Professor of Jewish Education HUC-JIR/NY) on her promotion to Associate Professor of Jewish Education.

Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman (Professor of Liturgy and the Barbara and Stephen Friedman Chair in Liturgy, Worship, and Ritual HUC-JIR/NY) received the Berakah Award from the North American Academy of Liturgy in recognition of his singular scholarly contribution to the field of liturgy. Dr. Hoffman has also been invited to give the annual Aidan Kavanagh Commencement Lecture at Yale Divinity School in September.

Dr. David Ilan (Acting Director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology) delivered the paper “Undermining the Edifice of Ethnocentric Historical Narrative in Israel with Community-Based Archaeology” while at the conference Filtering the Past: Nationalism and Archeology in the Middle East in Salt Lake City, Utah in April. Prior to this Utah conference, Dr. Illan was invited to speak at the University if California San Diego to lecture at the UCSD Jewish Studies departmental seminar, where he presented “Acculturation and Socioeconomic Change at Tel Dan (Israel) in the Early Iron Age (1200-1000 BCE)”. Following the Utah lecture, Dr. Illan presented a lecture at the British Museum entitled “Tel Dan in the Early Iron Age: A Cultural Crucible”.

Dr. Amira Meir (Lecturer on Bible, HUC-JIR/Jerusalem) is the editor of the next volume of Beit Mikra (177), the quarterly published by the World Jewish Bible Center in Jerusalem. The title of the volume is "Demut Ha'isha Ba' mikra U'vamidrash" - "The image of the Woman in the Bible and in the Midrash".

Dr. Phillip E. Miller (Director of the Klau Library, HUC-JIR/NY) published “The Crimean Karaites and the Cimean War,” in Studia Orientalia (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society), vol. 95 (2003) and “The Karaites of Czarist Russia, 1780-1918,” in Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Sources (Leiden: E.J Brill, 2003).

Dr. Carol Ochs (Director of Graduate Studies, HUC-JIR/NY) on her promotion to Adjunct Full Professor of Jewish Religious Thought.

Dr. Adam Rubin (Assistant Professor of Jewish History, HUC-JIR/LA) published, "Has the Clock Struck Midnight? The Return of Bi-Nationalism" in the May 2004 issue of Sh'ma.

Dr. Dvora Weisberg (Associate Professor of Rabbinics and Director of the Beit Midrash at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles) on her promotion to Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature. Dr. Dvora Weisberg is especially interested in gender issues in rabbinic texts. She is currently working on a book on the evolution of levirate marriage in classical Judaism.

Rabbi Andrea Weiss (Instructor of Bible, HUC-JIR/New York, N’93) received her Ph.D. from The University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation, entitled "Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel," was supervised by Professor Jeffrey Tigay.

Karen Wilson has been accepted into the Ph.D. program in American history at UCLA, where the UCLA Department of History is consistently ranked among the top ten in the country.

Rabbi Amiel Wohl (C’57) together with his brother Dr. Theodore Herzl Wohl have written the book He Really Had Something to Say about their father Rabbi Samuel Wohl (C’27). The book is a survey of American Jewish History centering on Cincinnati and the Wise Temple from 1895 to 1972, the years of Rabbi Samuel Wohl’s life.

Dr. Michael Zeldin (Professor of Jewish Education, HUC-JIR/LA) has been named Senior Editor of the Journal of Jewish Education, a research journal with a 70-year history of publication. Professor Zeldin has assembled a distinguished group of scholars from general education and Jewish education to serve on the editorial board, including Dr. Isa Aron (Professor of Jewish Education, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles), Dr. Lisa Grant (Associate Professor of Jewish Education, HUC-JIR/NY), and Lee Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the recipient of an honorary degree from HUC-JIR.