Dr. Joshua Holo was promoted to the new position of Vice President of Academic Resources beginning November 1. Formerly the Dean of the Los Angeles Campus, Dr. Holo will now support our campus deans in their multifaceted roles in community relations, operations, institutional partnerships, strategic initiatives, and Institutional Advancement. In this newly created role, Dr. Holo will focus on strengthening our academic resources, extending the College-Institute’s reach, and increasing support of our libraries, museums, publications, and public programs among students, faculty, alumni, scholars, and visitors worldwide. Beginning in Cincinnati, home of the Klau Library, the Skirball Museum, HUC Press, and the American Jewish Archives, we are seeking new opportunities to elevate the campus as a research center and destination. Our campuses in Jerusalem, New York, and Los Angeles afford similar prospects for heightened impact and outreach. Dr. Holo will continue to oversee HUC Connect, our online learning platform, to strengthen our ability to deliver on our third key mission area: the development of public ideas.
Following these changes, the director of the Klau Library and editors of the HUC Press will report directly to Dr. Holo. Museum directors in Cincinnati, Jerusalem, and New York will continue to report to their local deans who report to the new Vice President. Importantly, Dr. Gary Zola, the Executive Director of the American Jewish Archives, will continue to report directly to the President, working in collaboration with all areas of the College-Institute as he has throughout his career.
Dr. Joshua Holo joined HUC-JIR in 2005, as a professor of Jewish history and director of the Louchheim School of Judaic Studies. Serving as Dean of the Jack H. Skirball Campus in Los Angeles Campus since 2010, he oversaw the naming of the Skirball Campus and the Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management; co-founded HUC’s digital learning platform, College Commons; and recently negotiated a renewed 25-year partnership agreement with the University of Southern California. A scholar of the Jews of the medieval Mediterranean, he most recently penned “Gender in Byzantine Judaism,” forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in Byzantium, and “Synagogues under Medieval Islam,” in Jewish Religious Architecture (Brill, 2020). He serves as the editor for the Brill Series on Jewish Studies.