Rabbi Joseph Skloot, Ph.D.

Rabbi Joseph A. Skloot, Ph.D., is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Associate Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual History at HUC-JIR/New York and the Associate Director of the Tisch/Star Fellowship program. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish History from Columbia University, his rabbinical ordination from HUC-JIR, and his A.B. in History from Princeton University.

Skloot is a historian of Jewish culture and religious thought in the early modern and modern periods. His research explores the history of Hebrew books, Jewish-Christian relations, the development of Jewish law, and Reform Jewish theology. His first book, First Impressions: Sefer Ḥasidim and Early Modern Hebrew Printing, was published by Brandeis University Press in 2023. It describes how sixteenth century Hebrew printers (Jewish and Christian) transformed a heterogeneous corpus of manuscripts into canonical book, and by extension, how Jewish sacred texts, long thought to be eternal and unchanging, were in fact created by and for human beings, with specific agendas and interests. He has also edited a volume of essays on contemporary questions in Jewish theology and life in tribute to his teacher and HUC-JIR colleague, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, entitled, Communities of Meaning: Conversations on Modern Jewish Life Inspired by Rabbi Larry Hoffman (Behrman House, 2024). Skloot is currently at work on two projects: a biography of three generations of the ibn Yahya family, exiles from Portugal who established themselves as leaders of Italian Jewry during the sixteenth century; and a shorter study of the ways the technologies of printing and digitization have changed how Jewish thinkers have understood what it means to be a human being and a Jew.

Prior to his appointment to HUC-JIR’s faculty, Skloot served as Associate Rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. He was chair of the Worship and Practice Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) for five years, overseeing the production of the Reform movement’s liturgies. Currently, Skloot is advising the CCAR on the production of a new Torah commentary. He is a sought-after teacher of adult learners and he has served on the faculty of The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center in New York, as well as a scholar-in-residence at congregations across the US.