Hebrew Union College Announces Promotion of Faculty Members
May 15, 2025
Hebrew Union College is pleased to announce promotions for two of its faculty members. Effective July 1, 2025, Sivan Zakai, Ph.D., Sara S. Lee Associate Professor of Jewish Education, will be promoted to full professor, and Rabbi Michael Marmur, Ph.D., will be promoted to full Professor of Jewish Theology.
Professor Zakai, based in Los Angeles, is a thought leader in Jewish and Israel education. She is the director of the Children’s Learning About Israel Project and co-director of both Project ORLIE: Research and Leadership in Israel Education and The Learning and Teaching about What Matters Project. She is also a member of the faculty at the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute. Her publications include the recently released Teaching Israel: Studies of Pedagogy from the Field (Brandeis, 2024) and My Second Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think about Israel (NYU, 2022). Zakai received the prestigious 2022 National Book Award from the Jewish Book Council, the 2022 Article of the Year Award from the Journal of Jewish Education, the 2023 Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) Small Grant, and the 2024 Ilia Salita Excellence in Research Award from the Jewish Funders Network. She is also the author of numerous academic articles, book chapters, and book reviews, and has served as associate editor and then senior co-editor of the Journal of Jewish Education.
Rabbi Marmur was born and raised in England and completed a B.A. in Modern History at the University of Oxford before moving to Israel in 1984. While studying for an M.A. in Ancient Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he completed his studies in the Israel Rabbinical Program of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem and was ordained in 1992. After 20 years serving Hebrew Union College in administrative capacities as the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost, and as Dean of the Jerusalem campus, Marmur now concentrates his energies on teaching and writing. In his recently released book Living The Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought (Palgrave Macmillan March 2025), he considers central questions of Jewish life today. Previous publications include Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Sources of Wonder (University of Toronto Press, 2016), and American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement and Belief (Brandeis University Press, 2020), which he co-edited with Hebrew Union College’s late Chancellor Emeritus Rabbi David Ellenson, Ph.D. z”l.
“On behalf of both Provost Andrea Weiss and myself, it is a great pleasure to announce the promotions for two of our exceptional faculty members who are leaders in their fields and have made invaluable contributions to our faculty, students, and community life,” said Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., President of Hebrew Union College. “Through their research and publications, as well as their dedicated work with students and our wider academic community, Professors Zakai and Marmur are helping Hebrew Union College fulfill its mission to educate the dynamic leaders who will apply Jewish wisdom and reinvigorate our traditions for a vibrant future. We are honored to have these great scholars on our faculty, and we look forward to continuing to support them and serve alongside them as colleagues.”