Dr. Maurice Wohlgelernter

May 3, 2004 — Dr. Maurice Wohlgelernter, professor emeritus of English, Baruch College, City University of New York, will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Richard M. Joel, president of Yeshiva University, at its 73rd Annual Commencement on May 20. The exercises will take place at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where YU President Richard M. Joel will deliver the commencement address and confer more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate degrees.

President Joel will also bestow honorary degrees on Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and Dr. Ruth Roskies Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature, Harvard University.

Dr. Wohlgelernter received a BA from Yeshiva University, an MA and PhD from Columbia University, and ordination from YU’s affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. From 1972 to 1982, he directed Baruch’s Religion and Culture Program, and has taught at Yeshiva University and the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, NY. Dr. Wohlgelernter also held visiting and adjunct positions at New York University; YU’s Stern College for Women; City College, City University of New York; Bar-Ilan University; The New School; and Manhattanville College.

He is the author of Israel Zangwill: A Study (Columbia University Press, 1964); Frank O’Connor: An Introduction (Columbia University Press, 1977); and Jewish Writers/Irish Writers: Selected Essays on the Love of Words (Transaction Press of Rutgers University, 2000). Dr. Wohlgelernter also edited three books and wrote more than 50 essays and reviews.

Dr. Ruth Roskies Wisse

May 3, 2004 — Dr. Ruth Roskies Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University, will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Yeshiva University at its 73rd Annual Commencement on May 20. The exercises will take place at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where YU President Richard M. Joel will deliver the commencement address and confer more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate degrees.

President Joel will also bestow honorary degrees on Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and Dr. Maurice Wohlgelernter, professor emeritus of English, Baruch College, City University of New York.

Dr. Wisse received a BA and PhD from McGill University and an MA from Columbia University.

She directed Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies from 1993 to 1996, and has taught at McGill and Tel Aviv University. Dr. Wisse has held visiting appointments at The Hebrew University; New York University; Stanford University; and the Max Weinreich Center of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Dr. Wisse has written and edited numerous books, essays, and anthologies of Yiddish prose and poetry, including her book The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture (Free Press, 2000), for which she received the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship.

Rabbi Marvin Hier

May 3, 2004 — Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Yeshiva University at its 73rd Annual Commencement on May 20. The exercises will take place at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where YU President Richard M. Joel will deliver the commencement address and confer more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate degrees.

President Joel will also bestow honorary degrees on Dr. Ruth Roskies Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University, and Dr. Maurice Wohlgelernter, professor emeritus of English, Baruch College, City University of New York.

Following a 1977 visit to Holocaust sites in Europe, Rabbi Marvin Hier established the Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the world’s foremost Jewish human rights agencies. The center has more than 400,000 members and maintains offices throughout the US, and in Canada, Europe, Israel, and Argentina.

Rabbi Hier also established Moriah Films, the center’s film division, and is the recipient of two Academy Awards – one in 1997 as co-producer for The Long Way Home, a movie about Holocaust refugees, and another in 1981 as co-producer and co-writer for Genocide, a Holocaust documentary. Under his direction, the Wiesenthal Center served as consultant to Steven Spielberg’s epic Schindler’s List, and ABC Television’s adaptation of Herman Wouk’s novel War and Remembrance.

May 3, 2004 –

The institutionalization of religion in Israel has created a bureaucracy of closed doors, says Rabbi Seth Farber, an advocate for improved relations between religious and secular Jews in that country. He spoke May 2 on “Democracy and Religion: Fighting for Israel’s Soul,” the third in a seven-part lecture series celebrating Stern College for Women’s 50th anniversary.

An alumnus of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Rabbi Farber is founder and director of ITIM: The Jewish Life Information Center, which advises unaffiliated Israelis on Jewish life cycle rituals. Some 70 alumnae and guests attended his talk, cosponsored by Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf, founder of the Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf Scholar-in-Residence Program at SCW and a founding board member of the school.

In Israel, ritual Jewish life—marriage, burial, brit mila (circumcision), and conversion—are government-controlled through the Chief Rabbinate, often by ultra-Orthodox bureaucrats who many secular Israelis describe as autocratic, according to Rabbi Farber. He is author of the recently released An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston’s Maimonides School (Brandeis University Press, 2004).

“As a result, rank and file Israelis feel alienated and disconnected from Judaism,” he said. Yet, a recent poll indicated that most Jewish Israelis welcome religious life cycle events in a traditional manner: 91 percent think it is important to say Kaddish (the prayer for the dead) for a parent, 82 percent think it is important to be married by a rabbi. “A huge gap has developed between what people want and what is,” Rabbi Farber explained, adding that the central problem for many is a sense of powerlessness in the face of “closed doors.”

He said ITIM and other groups seek to bridge that gap by “mapping out every moment in the Jewish life cycle,” and by letting secular Israelis know that “someone out there cares about them and can make a difference in their lives.”

ITIM, for example, offers explanatory pamphlets in Hebrew, English, and Russian, and maintains a Web site that details all aspects of each ceremonial observance. It also offers a toll-free hotline and e-mail; Rabbi Farber often personally intercedes with the Chief Rabbinate on behalf individuals or couples who feel they have no place else to turn.

Previous Jubilee lecture topics included the state of Israel-Palestinian affairs and the role of Orthodox women today.