CBI Welcomes the Orange County Community Scholar Program One-Month Scholar                             

Professor David Ruderman

Saturday, January 7th; Lecture at 1:00 pm following services and Kiddush lunch

This program is being underwritten by the CBI Enrichment Fund.

It is open to the community free of charge, donations always welcome.

The Rabbis and Their Fascination with the Natural World:

Why are Jews Inclined to be Doctors and Scientists?

Over the month of lectures in Orange County, Professor Ruderman will reflect on the involvement of Jews with science, medicine, and the world of nature; the long and complex history of Jewish-Christian relations and how the latter have shaped the way we Jews see ourselves; the interaction of Jews and the urban experience; and both the glories and tragedies of the messianic impulse in Jewish history. He will tell stories, to re-create the lives of long and forgotten human beings, and to offer hope.

Professor Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and the Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham b. Mordecai Farissol (Cincinnati, Ohio, Hebrew Union College Press, 1981), for which he received the National Jewish Book Award in history in l982. He is co-author, with William W. Hallo and Michael Stanislawski, of Heritage: Civilization and the Jews Study Guide and Source Reader (New York, Praeger, 1984), prepared in conjunction with the showing of the Public Television series of the same name. He has written, edited and published many other works. Professor Ruderman was educated at the City College of New York, the Teacher’s Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Columbia University. He received his rabbinical degree from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1971, and his Ph.D. in Jewish History from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 1975. In June 2001, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture honored him with its lifetime achievement award for his work in Jewish history.