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Vol. 70, No. 1 (Summer 2026) - Celebrating America’s Sestercentennial

Living and Making History as a Historian

 

Shuly Rubin Schwartz

Adam Karov etzel Atzmo. People are related to themselves. Sanhedrin 9b.

This statement, meant to explain why it is prohibited to testify against oneself in court, captures for me the way I think about my career at JTS. Recounting the story of my professional journey is possible only by interweaving several interrelated aspects of my identity—female, Conservative Jew, historian, and institutional leader.

As a historian, looking back on the past—both personal and professional—has always felt natural. I believe I enriched my community’s understanding of JTS’s role in the world today by incorporating, in one way or another, the arc of history into everything that I said or wrote. Virtually every significant talk I gave began with sharing my conviction that one cannot know how to move forward without first looking backward to discern what one might learn from the experiences of the Jewish people in the past. Conscious of the shoulders I stand on, I frequently referred to my predecessors—how they met the challenges of their era and how that might inform the way we might meet the challenges of ours. With this as a starting point, I identified patterns and precedents, resisting quick judgment on current events despite the pressure in today’s social media landscape for instantaneous reactions or statements.

While this orientation as a historian facilitated my ability to navigate my professional career, most recently as chancellor, I also understood the extent to which my personal history and the many other identities I embrace impacted my career.

I was born into a family that valued Jewish learning, observance, culture, and tradition. A family steeped in a love of the Hebrew language and the State of Israel: my great-grandfather who was a passionate advocate for the revival of the Hebrew language, my grandfather who chose to study at JTS as he craved an intense Jewish education before preparing for a career in medicine, and then my parents who hoped to devote their lives to serving the Jewish people and gained the knowledge and training to do so, also at JTS.

I grew up as a preacher’s kid in a suburban community with a thriving synagogue that my father had served since his student days. Ordained by JTS in 1953, he and his cohort—and their wives—were among the many rabbinic couples who brought Judaism—and particularly Conservative Judaism—to Jews hungry for connection and meaning in postwar suburban America. These rabbis were what we would now call “entrepreneurs,” leading fledgling start-up synagogues with passion, dedication, and creativity, determined to engage this generation of Jews and build up a rich Jewish life. I had a front-row seat to this flourishing.

Attending an Orthodox Jewish day school until ninth grade, I gained a strong Judaic and Hebraic education. My horizons widened through more intensive exposure to western literature, science, history and ideas when I entered the local public high school. There, I also developed a close friendship with someone who had attended Catholic school; together, we learned from one another and expanded our insular perspectives.

To ensure the continuation of my Jewish learning, my father founded a branch of JTS’s Hebrew high school program, Prozdor, in his synagogue, so that I, and other Long Island teens, could continue our Jewish learning—one weekday evening per week at the Wantagh Jewish Center, coupled with Sunday mornings at JTS. These classes exposed me to a way of integrating my Jewish and secular education that felt thrilling. Through USY and Camp Ramah, I experienced a rich Jewish life beyond my home and developed nourishing friendships and leadership skills. By the time I left for college, I had been exposed to the richness and variety of Conservative Judaism—robust, integrated learning; prayer; observance; a commitment to making the world a more just place; and the joy and power of a nourishing network of like-minded individuals.

For my college years, I craved an academically rigorous, secular education in a place where I would also find a Jewish community engaged in the practice and study of Judaism. This led me to Barnard College, which, located blocks from JTS, would enable me to continue part-time study in its Teachers Institute, access kosher food through the Barnard meal plan, and be part of a large community of Jewishly-engaged students.1 Entranced by the study of history, I pursued further study in JTS’s graduate school. I began to imagine a career that would harness my learning to serve the Jewish people—though what form that would take felt inchoate.

During my years of graduate coursework, I was painfully aware of the frustration of gifted female classmates who amassed credits in the hope that JTS’s rabbinical school would soon open its doors to them. This experience later spurred me to consider how talented, educated Jewish women channeled their learning before they could even contemplate women’s ordination, let alone be ordained themselves. These gnawing questions led me, two decades later, to undertake the research that culminated in my book The Rabbi’s Wife.

By the 1980s, my husband, Rabbi Gershon Schwartz, was serving as a congregational rabbi, and I was struggling to find my niche as a rabbi’s wife and graduate student. Though I had observed my mother in the rebbetzin role and understood both its pitfalls and joys, second-wave feminism spotlighted how the role epitomized the derivative nature of female power, something that went against the grain of feminist goals. I tried to balance being a supportive spouse who took on some traditional roles such as hosting and tending to congregants’ needs while also utilizing my expertise to teach in the synagogue from time to time. Most of my waking hours were spent rearing four young children while also laboring to finish my dissertation.

Intellectually, it was a lonely stretch, as I found no like-minded peers in this suburban setting who shared my quest to combine parenting, community building, teaching, and dissertation writing. I made slow progress, eventually earning my PhD in Jewish history in 1987, the first woman at JTS to do so. After revising the dissertation and publishing it as a monograph, I began to despair of finding a fulfilling, full-time professional position that would allow me to further my craft as scholar and teacher.

It was during this period that my husband invited a JTS faculty member to serve as Scholar-in-Residence over Shabbat in our synagogue. A few weeks later our guest called, inviting me to return to JTS as a part-time assistant dean. Living too far from JTS and with our youngest still in pre-school, I regretfully declined the offer. After several months, I grew despondent, sure that another opportunity would never present itself. Thankfully, a year and a half later, it did. Fortuitously, my husband had just accepted a position at a synagogue forty minutes closer to JTS and our youngest would begin first grade. I accepted without hesitation.

So, in 1991, I began serving as the Assistant to the Dean of List College. A year later, I joined the faculty and in 1993 became dean of the college, a position I held for twenty-five years. During that time and later as dean of the Gershon Kekst Graduate School, and briefly as Provost, I grew enrollment, shaped curricula, initiated new programs, mentored hundreds of students, and worked with faculty and colleagues to further strengthen JTS’s academic core and student experience. At the same time, I also honed my teaching skills and scholarly interests in American Judaism/Jewry, Jewish women’s history, and gender studies. I shared my scholarship with others through articles, conferences, and scholar-in-residence weekends. All these experiences helped me contextualize, in real time, my perspective on the rapidly evolving Jewish landscape of the late twentieth and first quarter of the twenty-first centuries. At the same time, I observed firsthand the way that JTS, its student body and its faculty, and synagogue life had changed since my formative years. These encounters deepened my insights and enabled me to play a role in shaping the future of JTS and the Conservative Movement.

And all this occurred at a time when the Jewish feminist movement’s impact was at its height, and I benefited greatly from the changing landscape and greater cultural interest in women’s voices. I became a trailblazer in part because I was blessed to be in the right place at the right time in history. And I was well suited to appreciate this good fortune because, as a scholar and teacher, I could trace the path women had taken to arrive at this point.

JTS had long been a pioneer in educating women. In the first decade of the twentieth century, JTS admitted as a special student its first woman, Henrietta Szold, who later went on to establish Hadassah in 1912 and lead what became the largest voluntary women’s organization and largest Jewish membership organization in the United States.2 In 1909, JTS President Solomon Schechter then established the Teachers Institute, which accepted women as well as men, thus making it possible for women to obtain advanced Jewish learning and prepare for careers in Jewish education.3 Women’s League, founded in 1918 by Schechter’s wife Mathilde, created numerous opportunities over many decades for women to both deepen their Jewish knowledge and enhance Jewish life as volunteers.4 Camp Ramah, founded by JTS in 1947, provided additional learning and leadership opportunities for both sexes.5

But, by the 1970s, this gap between women’s knowledge and their opportunities for professional leadership had become untenable for many. Notably, it spurred a group of women who called themselves Ezrat Nashim to lobby the Rabbinical Assembly for full equality. In their words: “To educate women and deny them the opportunity to act from this knowledge is an affront to their intelligence, talents and integrity.” This soon led to a cascade of changes, as the Conservative Movement embraced egalitarianism in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and JTS opened its rabbinical school to women, ordaining its first woman, Amy Eilberg, in 1985.6

When my appointment as Chancellor was announced on June 1, 2020, I experienced an outpouring of support and excitement from all corners of the Jewish world, but especially from women. I came to understand that my appointment held symbolic importance that transcended me. That the eighth chancellor was a woman gave younger female Jewish leaders a sense of validation and possibility. Echoing the sentiments expressed when JTS began ordaining women rabbis, these women felt the gap between their capabilities and professional opportunities shrink with my appointment. They grew more confident that they too might someday attain positions of leadership that had felt out of reach to them. Similarly, parents of young girls expressed elation, knowing that their daughters would grow up with the expectation that women as well as men could serve in such an esteemed role.

These sentiments moved me deeply, but they also impressed upon me the responsibility that comes with being a “first,” something I had hardly thought much about before. Beyond the conventional qualifications that I brought to the role—degrees I had earned, books and articles I had written, and accomplishments as an administrator, teacher, speaker, and mentor—and beyond the specific initiatives I yet hoped to achieve, I understood that I had the opportunity to change hearts and minds simply as the first woman in this role. My professional experiences were also colored by personal loss. During my years as dean, I grieved the death of my parents in the 1990s, and my son and husband in the early 2000s. Returning to work and the classroom each time right after shiva, saying kaddish at JTS regularly, and speaking openly about the grief and devastation that I felt, I both benefited greatly from the warm embrace of the JTS community and—as I realized only later—unconsciously modeled ways of integrating loss into a hopeful and generative path forward. When I remarried several years later, my new husband, Eric Fishman, happily embraced the JTS community, as it did him.

All of these experiences—my personal history and the influence of JTS on it, my evolution as educator and historian—shaped my chancellorship, but this required a shift in how I communicated. As a historian, I generally relied on sources and footnotes to anchor my work. Except for the introduction to my second book on rabbis’ wives, and my contribution to Jeffrey Gurock’s book Conversations with Colleagues: On Becoming an American Jewish Historian, 7 I rarely wrote in the personal voice. When I spoke publicly, my authority—like that of any historian—stemmed primarily from my familiarity with the sources—written, oral, material—that informed my analysis and perspective.

As chancellor, I quickly realized the need to recalibrate my voice, for the JTS community was looking to me not only for historical perspective but also for institutional leadership. Students, faculty, alumni, Conservative Jews, North American Jews, Jewish women, Jewish institutional leaders, and American religious leaders hoped for inspiration, guidance, insight, role modeling, and a sense of direction. Harnessing my many identities proved to be essential to being able to meet these needs.

Reading my many talks, communications, and writings from the past six years, I can see the extent to which I embodied a manner that was consciously relational, nuanced, flexible; one that normalized the embrace of loss, vulnerability, empathy, and care. Many might characterize this as “female,” but I prefer to see it as the only way I—a female, Jewish historian and educator, and seasoned administrator—could lead.

As chancellor, I also had a unique perch from which to witness and experience the evolution of contemporary American Jewry, especially of Conservative Judaism. My initial encounters were virtual, since the first eighteen months of my chancellorship coincided with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. American Jews could easily have focused solely on their and their loved ones’ health and employment, their children’s schooling, and the procurement of food and household necessities, relegating their Jewish lives to an afterthought. But, as Jews have done throughout history, many chose to adapt to the new reality and find new ways to engage Jewishly. And Jewish leaders met this taxing moment with creativity, empathy, and dedication. Connecting with our alumni who served as clergy, educators, and communal leaders; speaking to synagogue communities; participating in conferences devoted to aspects of the Jewish experience and embracing virtual learning for a full academic year at JTS, I witnessed extraordinary resilience, devotion, and commitment on the part of professionals in the field and among our JTS faculty, administrators, and students, all of whom nimbly adjusted their expectations and protocols to create new ways to meaningfully pray, study, offer pastoral care, celebrate happy milestones and foster community.

Then, when COVID restrictions lifted and I began visiting Conservative synagogues around the country, I again witnessed robust communities of devoted, educated, engaged Jews deeply proud of their thriving communities. Their delight was palpable as they articulated their choice of affiliating with a synagogue that embodied Conservative Judaism, both through its talented and devoted leadership and through its congregants. They affirmed their commitment to prayer, study, halakhah, and Israel. They also worked together to nurture caring communities and build bridges with others in our country and in other faith communities.

I found this same dedication each summer when visiting Camp Ramah, which operates under the educational auspices of JTS, its founding institution, and is the camping arm of the Conservative Movement. I returned energized by my encounters with teens and young staff who were passionately engaged in serious Jewish learning, observance, and community building. And, at JTS, I engaged with a growing number of talented students eager to make a difference in the Jewish future by preparing for careers of service.

All of this flew in the face of conventional wisdom and data, as well as scholarly analysis. The Conservative Movement had been in a period of retrenchment for well over a decade. United Synagogue Youth (USY), which had been a flourishing and meaningful outlet for intensive Jewish observance, learning and community for thousands of Conservative Jewish teens—including my own children and over one-third of List College students during the first half of my deanship—steeply declined in numbers. United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism (USCJ) closed its college-programming branch, Koach, in 2012. Two years later, the Solomon Schechter Day School Network separated from USCJ after declining enrollment and school closures. The 2020 Pew study found that only 8% of Jewish adults under 30 identified as Conservative Jews, a new low that followed years of decline. So it was not surprising that, without fail, wherever I spoke or taught, someone would pull me aside, their agitation visible, to ask me about the dying Conservative Movement. “What are we going to do?” they wanted to know, “because our synagogue/camp/school is thriving, but the Conservative Movement is dying.”8

After experiencing this more times than I can count, I grew to understand that while the Conservative Movement continues to face challenges, evidence of resurgence abounds. I’ve come to realize that the biggest challenge to the Conservative Movement today stems less from a flaw in Conservative Judaism’s approach, ideology, or leadership and more from a lack of confidence in the efficacy of the movement as a whole. Too often have I witnessed people’s inability to confidently embrace the Conservative Movement because they feel it doesn’t measure up either to the movement’s twentieth-century heyday or to the success of other streams of Judaism at present. Conservative Movement Jewish leaders, and future studies of the Conservative Movement, would benefit from revisiting old tropes with fresh eyes, naming the crisis of confidence and addressing it head-on.

Similarly, North American Jewry shared a growing concern that the pipeline to future clergy leadership had run dry. Emerging in the wake of the growing popularity of non-denominational, egalitarian minyanim and yeshivot, this trend was most acute among denominational seminaries that had historically produced most of the rabbis who served North American Jewry. For example, from 2002-2012, JTS ordained on average 23 rabbinical students per year; from 2013-2021, the average dropped to 14.

This led many prominent communal leaders and foundations to conclude that the movements had outlived their usefulness and ought to either merge or embrace a post-denominational identity.

My experience with devotees of particular streams of Judaism as well as what I learned through trusted seminary president colleagues at both denominational and non-denominational institutions, led me to the opposite conclusion. It reaffirmed my conviction that distinct differences in emphasis, tone, prioritization, and perspective were a boon to the Jewish future, for it offered more Jews more portals of entry to Judaism. Historians know that Judaism has never been monolithic and that it thrives in large measure precisely because of its varieties of expression. Collaboration, when appropriate—not mergers—is what’s needed in today’s world. It grows best from a soil of mutual respect cultivated by diverse groups that each bring unique strengths to the table.9

This conviction has indeed borne fruit. Thanks to foundation-funded tapping grants to encourage young people to consider clergy careers and other initiatives, young people again began to seek out rabbinic training, and many of them specifically wanted to become Conservative rabbis. To ensure that they would be fully prepared to enter the program, JTS introduced new initiatives, such as a low-residency mehinah program. In Fall 2026, JTS will welcome over 3 times the number of rabbinical students it enrolled 5 years ago.

My tenure as chancellor also coincided with escalating polarization in American life, a reorientation of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel, and a sharp rise in antisemitism. Reflecting on my first year as chancellor, in 2021, I noted to the board that “This has been a year of such turmoil, in our country and in Israel, in heightened sensitivities around race relations, gender norms, and politics. It has been a time of rising violence generally and of antisemitism specifically.” I knew that to address these divisive times, JTS had to lead “with head and heart and with empathy and humility.” I had not expected that this vision would be put to the test so quickly, but earlier that spring, 10 JTS rabbinical students added their names to a letter signed by almost 100 rabbinical students critical of Israel’s actions during its conflict with Hamas.10 The condemnation that JTS, and I personally, received was swift, harsh, and unrelenting. JTS was assumed to be harboring and sympathetic to anti-Zionists, and I was taken to task for not criticizing the students publicly and affirming JTS’s Zionist bona fides. Resisting this pressure, I chose to do nothing in public. Why? As I explained to the Board:

Frustrating as it can sometimes be, education is a slow, deliberative process and sadly this approach goes against the grain of the now-common cultural habit of quick judgment and public shaming. JTS is offering a different path, one that is nuanced, modest, and humane, and while it doesn’t make headlines, it is the most effective path in the long run, for, if education is to be life altering and lasting, if critique is to have a chance of being heard, none of this can be done with blunt instruments.11

And that is what we did, then and throughout my tenure. Listen, educate, discuss, disagree, but with both an underlying respect for one another and a love for Israel in all its complexity. By the time these students were ordained, virtually all had expressed gratitude to JTS leadership for modeling an approach that helped them both grow in wisdom and observe a model they would strive to adopt in their careers.

Challenges to this approach grew only more intense after October 7. As voices on the extremes garnered handwringing and media attention and as polarization pressured Jews into believing that they must express either unalloyed loyalty to Israel or reject Zionism outright, JTS steadfastly modeled something different. Many in the broader community appreciated the approach that we took. Participating in panels, missions, and structured dialogue on these issues, I experienced a growing desire among many to embrace complexity and nuance, to pair a rigorous critique of Israel’s policies and/or government with unwavering commitment to the State of Israel. Again, I found myself needing to foreground how to hold contradictory ideas and commitments with conviction and passion, resist the temptation to retreat into insularity, and foster allyship even during precarious times.

In this moment, prior encounters with interreligious engagement proved invaluable. I had been intrigued by and appreciative of the variety of religious expressions since high school; these sentiments were enhanced by my study of religion in college and graduate school. As a faculty member, I pushed the boundaries of interreligious understanding by co-teaching courses with Christian colleagues at our neighboring Union Theological Seminary. All of this cemented my commitment to religious pluralism and to interreligious dialogue.12

Thus, after October 7, while pressured by many to call out my presidential colleagues on Morningside Heights for failing to stem antisemitic activism on campus, I deliberately chose the opposite tack by inviting all New York City college presidents to JTS and reaching out to Christian and Muslim clergy to help them better understand what they were dealing with. I worked to find common ground and sow seeds of fruitful collaboration even on the most fraught issues. This approach has yielded dividends over the past few years, with deepened partnerships and new collaborations, coupled with greater respect and renewed appreciation. Thankfully, I was fortified in these efforts knowing that this bridge-building was intrinsic to the leadership of my predecessors.

Unlike my scholarly writings, my communications during this period lack the rigorous historical analysis that can only emerge over time. Instead, these communications will become the primary sources for nuanced perspectives during this troubled period that will, I hope, form the basis of a more complex understanding of this critical moment in our history.13

With this as a starting point, I identified patterns and precedents, resisting quick judgment on current events, despite the pressure in today’s social media landscape for instantaneous reactions or statements. I strove to meet the acute needs of my community by helping them make sense of what was going on around them, particularly in the aftermath of October 7.

My training as a historian also meant that I sometimes felt like an archeologist, bringing back to life central figures in American Jewry—and in JTS’s history especially—who were barely known by today’s students, as I charted JTS’s course for the future. For example, through our strategic planning process, we were keenly aware of the need for JTS to offer a strong, steady moral voice anchored in our tradition that would enable people to find their bearings in this fraught time.

I knew that in doing so, we would be reimagining the conviction of Chancellor Louis Finkelstein, who effected this goal in the postwar period through his Institute for Religious and Social Studies; Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion; annual High Holiday messages in the New York Times; and popular radio and then television series, The Eternal Light.14

JTS’s twenty-first-century iteration of this vision involves convening politicians, journalists, public intellectuals, academics, and institutional leaders to discuss contemporary challenges in a non-dogmatic but thoughtful, intellectually compelling way. Dialogue across difference was our goal—dialogue borne of genuine respect for the views of others, the recognition of other truths as well as our own, and a deep conviction that we must grapple with the insights, values, and imperatives of our tradition on the burning issues of the day and their implications for the present. JTS further amplifies these convenings through the ongoing work of our current centers—the Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice and the Millstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue.

Similarly, when JTS launched the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, I felt that I was very much reinvigorating the vision of Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founding dean of JTS’s undergraduate school, the Teachers Institute, who taught at JTS for many decades and who believed in an expansive Judaism that included not only religion but also language, literature, art, music, dance, and more.

Surely, leading an institution as a historian only took me so far. Yet, I believe that this orientation, coupled with a deep commitment to meeting the needs of students, faculty, staff, trustees, supporters, and alumni—and a clear vision for JTS’s future—helped propel the institution forward in impactful ways that were authentic to its singular role in the landscape of American Jewry.

Adam Karov etzel Atzmo. People are related to themselves.

I hope I brought the best of my training, experience, commitments, vision, and relationships to my work at JTS. May my successor take this beloved institution to even greater heights in the decades to come.

Shuly Rubin Schwartz, PhD is Chancellor Emerita and Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

  1. 1 The Teachers Institute was established in 1909. The Seminary College of Jewish Studies which began in the 1920s was incorporated into the Teachers Institute in 1931. A dual-degree program between the Teachers Institute and Columbia University’s School of General Studies was established in 1953. In 1979, a dual-degree program was established with Barnard College. This undergraduate division was renamed the Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies in 1986. For a full institutional history, see Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Jack Wertheimer, ed. (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997).

  2. 2 Hadassah: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, https://www.hadassah.org/.; Shulamit Reinharz, “Szold, Henrietta,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, eds. (Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 19:409-411. Gale eBooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2587519475/GVRL?u=nysl_me_jethsoa&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=04d8fa1f.

  3. 3 Wertheimer, Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 1:567.

  4. 4 “History,” Women’s League for Conservative Judaism—Jewish Women’s Group, January 9, 2014, https://www.wlcj.org/about/about-womens-league/history/.

  5. 5 “Who We Are,” Camp Ramah, https://www.campramah.org/mission.

  6. 6 “Jewish Women Call for Change,” Jewish Women’s Archive, https://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy/documentstudies/jewish-women-call-for-change; and Sasha Kranson-Forrest, “Egalitarianism in Jewish Spaces Is More than Inclusion,” Jewish Women’s Archive, https://jwa.org/blog/risingvoices/egalitarianism-jewish-spaces-more-inclusion.

  7. 7 “From Kremenets to New York: My Personal Journey as a Historian,” in Conversations with Colleagues; On Becoming an American Jewish Historian, Jeffrey S. Gurock, ed. (Academic Studies Press, 2018).

  8. 8 Naomi Zeveloff, “Will Schechter Schools Leave Conservatives?” Forward, July 9, 2012; Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, February 12, 2014; Sam Cohen, “College Dropouts,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 3, 2012, https://www.jta.org/2012/07/03/ny/college-dropouts; Daniel Gordis, “Conservative Judaism: A Requiem,” Jewish Review of Books, Winter 2014, https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/566/requiem-for-a-movement/ and “Jewish Americans in 2020” Pew Study, May 11, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/.

  9. 9 Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, “The 2 Options Left for Conservative Judaism,” Forward, December 22, 2015; Forward Staff, “We asked 30 rabbis: Is Judaism heading toward a post-denominational future?” Forward, May 19, 2020.

  10. 10 “Rabbinical and Cantorial Students Appeal to the Jewish Community,” https://docs.google.com/document/d/17iNzy0uThn6YECqiBx9t_R-WAHF7m2Kkxxiq8v0IfPA/edit?usp=embed_facebook.

  11. 11 Shuly Rubin Schwartz, “Board Report, 6-21, and Reflections and Vision for 2022,” June 16, 2021, personal files of author.

  12. 12 Initially, I co-taught Jewish and Christian Women in the American Historical Experience: A Comparative Perspective for several years with the late Rosemary Keller, professor of church history, while also serving, at her request, as the Judaism section editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Rosemary Skinner Keller and Rosemary Radford Reuther, eds. (2006). I also served on the advisory board of the Westminster Dictionary of Women in American Religious History, Susan Hill Lindley, ed. (2008). I later co-taught with Professor Mary C. Boys both Women Transforming Religion & Society and Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations. We also co-authored “Reorienting ‘Settled Identities’: A Course on Jewish-Christian Relations,” in Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations 17 no. 1 (2022): 1-17; and “Passover & Easter,” in the Encyclopedia of Jewish-Christian Relations Online, Walter Homolka, Rainer Kampling, Amy-Jill Levine, Christoph Markschies, Peter Schäfer and Martin Thurner, eds. (2020).

  13. 13 Andrew Lapin, “Engagement in campus Jewish life spiked after Oct. 7 but has since dropped down somewhat, Tufts study finds,” Forward, September 4, 2024, https://forward.com/news/650442/engagement-in-campus-jewish-life-spiked-after-oct-7-but-has-since-dropped-down-somewhat-tufts-study-finds/. For my writings, see https://www.jtsa.edu/chancellor-schwartz-leadership-scholarship/.

  14. 14 The Institute for Religious and Social Studies was founded in 1945; the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion in 1939. The High Holiday messages were published in the New York Times beginning in the 1940s, and The Eternal Light radio program aired from 1944–1989 and was adapted for television in the 1950s. See Wertheimer, Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 1:188–89, 191–94, 588.