Seminary’s Choice of Non-Rabbi Leader Called Bold

The choice of a Stanford University religious studies professor who is not a rabbi to serve as the next chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary is being greeted as a bold move by an institution that is struggling with its direction.Arnold Eisen is one of the leading scholars on modern Jewish thought at one of the leading religious studies departments in the country. He has long participated in a broader conversation with the American Jewish community, as the author of several popular books and as a frequent speaker.As a scholar immersed in both theology and sociology, he may be just the person who can handle the task of sorting through the issues of Jewish law and declining demographics that have been dividing the Conservative movement, observers said.His appointment may be confirmed as early as today, though sources close to him say he will not fill the position until a year from now because he wants his son to finish his last year of high school in California.“He’s going to come in from a neutral position, and he will clearly have the opportunity to craft his vision,” a cantor who is a rabbinical student at the seminary, Seth Adelson, said.One rabbi cautioned that he is going to have to earn the trust and respect of Conservative rabbis, who expected the position to be filled by one of their own.“Everyone is extremely excited about this choice. I believe it is an inspired choice that is good for the American Jewish community,” the president of the Hebrew Union College, Rabbi David Ellenson, said. “He is one of the most outstanding students of Judaism in the modern world today.”Mr. Eisen has described himself as a “modern American Jew who is trying to live life well in keeping with the demands of Torah and the ethical imperatives of our pluralist American democracy.”Without any prior professional affiliation with the Conservative movement, Mr. Eisen may be able to engage more easily in a conversation with the other streams of Judaism, both more liberal and more orthodox.Former students and colleagues describe him as a brilliant mind who commands attention with his deep voice.“The first thing I would say about Arnie is that he is a mensch,” a former student of his who now teaches at Yale, Mara Benjamin, said.A colleague of his at Stanford’s, Linda Hess, said he is “a wonderful leader” and that she would be “very sorry to see him leave.”“I would applaud his nomination,” a professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, Dan Miron, said. “He is a very fine scholar and a person who has real insights into Jewish philosophy and thinking.”Some are wondering about Mr. Eisen’s politics.In a paper delivered to the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in 2000, Mr. Eisen seemed skeptical of letting politics define the Jewish agenda. He questioned the notion that voting Democratic was in itself a gesture in support of Jewish values.“At times Jewish interests and principles overlap existing positions, or combine them. In other respects, however, they provoke a stance very different from anything the major parties have yet formulated – and almost always supply a different rationale,” he said.Liberals “trust too much in rational solutions to intractable problems” and “seem ready to sacrifice particular traditions or communities in the name of abstract universal goods,” he said, while conservatives “seem to have in mind a past that had no room for Jews and so cannot attract me now.”Critical to Mr. Eisen’s leadership at the seminary will be his ability to facilitate conversation on the major debates of the movement while at the same time taking a clear personal stance, observers said.On the matter of Israel in particular, he has spoken at synagogues urging Americans to strengthen their relationship with Israel by exploring non-tourist sites in the country, increasing their knowledge of Israeli culture and history, and learning Hebrew.A list of his suggestions to congregants at Temple Isaiah of Lafayette, Calif., leads with the imperative to “increase our knowledge about the Reality of Israel, as opposed to the Myth of Israel.”His selection, said to be awaiting confirmation by the seminary’s board, was reported Friday in the Forward and Saturday in the New York Times.Mr. Eisen, in his mid-50s, is married to an academic and has two children, one in high school and one in college. Should he move to New York from Palo Alto, Calif., he will be closer to his father, who lives in Philadelphia.Ms. Benjamin said she remembers Mr. Eisen’s counsel when she began her graduate program at Stanford. He gathered the incoming students and told them that they would face students with stronger religious backgrounds who might make them feel inadequate. “Then he said, ‘I want to tell you that you can’t live your life as a scholar that way. What you need to do is do what you do very well,'” Ms. Benjamin said.She called the story “powerful and revealing.”“The Conservative movement needs someone who has that philosophy of just being confident of what we have to offer,” Ms. Benjamin said. “We need someone to lead us with that sense of confidence, and I think Arnold Eisen has it.”

Seminary’s Choice of Non-Rabbi Leader Called Bold

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