Contemporary Jewish & Halachic Issues

$10 - Please Register at the Door!

Rabbi Dr. Alan Brill is Assistant Prof. of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University, Instructor in Jewish thought at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, co-Founder and Dean of Kavvanah: Center for Jewish Thought. He was ordained by RIETS and has his PhD from Fordham University. He also did graduate study at Hebrew University and Harvard University. He is the author of Thinking God: The Mysticism of R. Zadok of Lublin and has a forthcoming volume on Judaism and Other Religions.

Rabbi Saul J. Berman is a leading Orthodox teacher and thinker. He was ordained at Yeshiva University, from which he also received his B.A. and his M.H.L. He completed a degree in law, a J.D., at New York University, and an M.A. in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. He spent two years studying mishpat ivri in Israel at Hebrew University and at Tel Aviv University. He is married to Shellee Berman, and they have four children, one son-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren in Israel. Rabbi Berman served as the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley, California, from 1963 to 1969, and as the spiritual leader of the Young Israel in Brookline, Mass. from 1969-1971. In 1971, he was appointed Chairman of the Department if Judaic Studies of Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University. In 1984, Rabbi Berman accepted the position as Senior Rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan, where he served until 1990. In 1990, he returned to academic life, as Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Stern College, and as an adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar in Jewish Law. In 1997, Rabbi Berman became Director of Edah, a new organization devoted to the invigoration of modern Orthodox ideology and religious life.

As an active Rabbinical Court Advocate since 1995, Rachel Levmore has specialized in cases of Iggun (being locked into a marriage) and Get-Refusal heard by the Israeli Rabbinical Courts. In January 2000 she became the first woman to join the “Agunot Unit” in the Directorate of the Israeli Rabbinical Courts. She is the Coordinator for Matters of Iggun And Get-Refusal, a joint project of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis in Israel and the Jewish Agency for Israel. Rachel is one of a team that developed a Prenuptial Agreement for the Prevention of Get-Refusal, which relates to problems peculiar to Israeli society, while still valid for world-wide application. Her extensive research in the subject has been documented in her Master’s thesis. Through her lectures and discussion groups held in Israel and abroad, she raises the awareness of the Jewish world regarding the subject of women’s status and self-actualization in Judaism, specifically addressing the complexity of Jewish divorce today. Rachel is a Mozes S. Schupf Doctoral Fellow in the Talmud Department of Bar Ilan University. The subject of her research for her doctoral dissertation is Iggun.

Rabbi Charles Sheer has been the Jewish Chaplain at Columbia University since 1969. He serves as the Director of the Hillel in the new Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, a beautiful facility of Jerusalem stone which was dedicated in April 2000. He did his undergraduate studies at Yeshiva College where he majored in history. His BA was granted in 1965 at which time he was on the Dean’s List. He was honored by Yeshiva College with the Revel Memorial Award in 1994 for outstanding leadership in the field of Religion and Religious Education. After his Ordination, he served for two years as Associate Rabbi at the Riverdale Jewish Center under Rabbi Irving Greenberg. He served on the executive boards of the Rabbinic Alumni of Yeshiva University and the Rabbinical Council of America. Rabbi Sheer lives in Riverdale with his wife, Judy Adler Sheer, and has three children and seven grandchildren.

Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber is the author of the 8-volume Minhagei Yisrael on the history of Jewish customs, as well as tens of books and hundreds of monographs dealing with a wide range of halakic, linguistic and historical subject. He was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 1992 and had taught at Bar Ilan Univeristy in the Departments of Jewish History and Talmud since 1968. He serves at president of the Kollel and Midrasha at Bar Ilan University, which enrolls over 900 women and 300 men in daily half-day study of Jewish texts (in addition to their university course work). Many of whom continue on to the rabbinate or graduate work, as well as the rabbi of Congregation Menachem Tzion in the Old City of Jerusalem. He studied at Yeshivat Kol-Torah in Israel (1958-59) and Hevron (1959-62). Professor Sperber received his doctorate from University College London in the Departments of Ancient History and Hebrew Studies, studying under Professor A. Momigliano and S. Stein. He founded and headed the Bar Ilan University Press from its inception to the 1970s until 1990. Since 1994, he has served as Chairman of the Committee on Zionist Religious Education at the Ministry of Education. Daniel and his wife Chana are parents of ten children.