Pines School Graduation Class of 2024/5784

The Pines School of Graduate Studies celebrated graduation exercises on May 31 with the awarding of eight degrees. The Doctor of Philosophy in Judaic, Hebraic, and Cognate Studies was awarded to Steven L. Donnally, whose dissertation topic was “Beyond Ethnicity: Belonging in the Former Prophets.” The Doctor of Hebrew Letters was awarded to Rabbi Israel David Oler, whose dissertation topic was “Yearning for Spirituality in Religious Naturalism.” (The D.H.L. is an earned, non-residential doctoral program available to all rabbinical ordinees of the College-Institute. If you are interested in the program, please contact Dr. Richard Sarason, PSGS Director, at rsarason@huc.edu .) The Master of Philosophy in Judaic, Hebraic, and Cognate Studies, which is awarded to students who have successfully completed all requirements for the Ph.D. except for the dissertation, was awarded to David P. Johnson, Robert Thomas Murphy, and Christopher DuTeil Slane. The Master of Arts in Jewish Studies degree was awarded to Jonathan Edward Beck, Thomas Clayton Carroll (with a Master’s thesis, “By This Amulet of Three: Reuniting an Amulet from the Cairo Genizah”), and Darhla Shadell Miles (with a Master’s thesis, “The Barter of Human Flesh: Jewish Slave-Traders and the Civil War”).

Additionally, rabbinical students Gretchen Suzanne Johnson, Mark Clayton Oppenheimer, Marisa Hillary Papell, and Jamie Starr received the Master of Hebrew Letters degree at the ceremony. Dr. Frederick M. Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown Law Center, received the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, and was the featured speaker at graduation.