Jacob J. Schacter

Jacob J. Schacter (born 1950) is an American Orthodox rabbi. Schacter, a historian of intellectual trends in Orthodox Judaism, is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University.

Biography

Schacter, the son of Pnina Gewirtz Schacter and Rabbi Herschel Schacter, grew up in New York City's Bronx neighborhood.[1]

Schacter holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages from Harvard University and received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in 1973. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1973.[2] He lives in Teaneck, New Jersey.

According to Jacob Katz, Schacter's thesis, "Rabbi Jacob Emden: Life and Major Works" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1988), "supplanted" Mortimer J. Cohen's 1937 book Jacob Emden: A Man of Controversy, as the most authoritative source on Emden.[3]

Schacter is an historian of intellectual trends in Orthodox Judaism.[4] Schacter is regarded as following "the ideological tradition" of Joseph B. Soloveitchik.[5] His 1997 book, A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy and American Judaism, was about the "complicated relationship" between Mordecai Kaplan, an Orthodox rabbi who left that movement to found Reconstructionist Judaism.[4] Before leaving Orthodoxy, Kaplan had been Rabbi of the Jewish Center (Manhattan), the congregation that Schacter would later lead.[4]

While still a graduate student, Schacter became the first Rabbi of Young Israel of Sharon, in Sharon, Massachusetts. Serving in this capacity from 1977 - 1981, he created a new, vibrant, and committed community.[6] He became Rabbi of the prestigious Jewish Center in Manhattan in 1981.[2] Under his leadership, the congregation more than tripled in size, with new members attracted by "the intellectual seriousness of the rabbi's sermons and lectures.[4][2]

In 2000, he moved to Massachusetts where he became dean of the Rabbi Joseph B Soloveitchik Institute in Brookline,[2][7][8] a position he held until 2005, when he left to become Senior Scholar and University Professor at Yeshiva University's new Center for the Jewish Future (initially called the Center for the Jewish People).[5][9][10]

As author
  • "A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism." Coauthor with Jeffrey S. Gurock, Columbia University Press (1997)[11][12][13][14]

As editor
  • "Reverence, Righteousness and Rahamanut: Essays in Memory of Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung" (1992)
  • "Jewish Tradition and The Nontraditional Jew" (1992)
  • "Judaism's Encounter with other Cultures: Rejection or Integration?" (1997)
  • "The Complete Service for the Period of Bereavement" (1995)

References
  1. Fox, Margalit (26 March 2013). "Rabbi Herschel Schacter Is Dead at 95. Cried to the Jews of Buchenwald: 'You Are Free'". New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
  2. Lieberman, Michael (14 January 2000). "The ripple-effect rabbi". Jerusalem Post. ProQuest 319272228.
  3. Katz, Jacob (1988). Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages. unpublished PhD thesis. p. 357.
  4. Kessler, E.J. (16 May 1997). "Two Rabbis Face The Juggernaut". The Forward. ProQuest 367733521.
  5. Heilman, Uriel (28 April 2005). "The dean of Orthodoxy". Jerusalem Post. ProQuest 319472733.
  6. Reingold, Sharon (12 April 2001). "Young Israel of Sharon Goes Home". The Jewish Advocate. ProQuest 205196082.
  7. "New York Rabbi To Lead Boston Institute Named for Orthodox Sage J. Soloveitchik". The Forward. 24 September 1999. ProQuest 367702121.
  8. Paulson, Michael (16 September 2000). "Lectures to Try to Emulate Soloveitchik's Love of Learning". Boston Globe. ProQuest 405352634.
  9. "Rabbinical Council of America (RCA)". www.rabbis.org. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23.
  10. http://www.yu.edu/faculty/pages/Schacter-Jacob>
  11. Shargel, Baila R. (1999). "Review of A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism". American Jewish History. 87 (4): 404–408. doi:10.1353/ajh.1999.0043. JSTOR 23886240. S2CID 162229017.
  12. Goldsmith, Emanuel S. (1999). "Review of A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism". AJS Review. 24 (1): 171–174. doi:10.1017/S0364009400011181. JSTOR 1486540. S2CID 162231756.
  13. Starr, David B. (1998). "Review of A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism". Jewish Political Studies Review. 10 (1/2): 138–141. JSTOR 25834422.
  14. Libowitz, Richard (1998). "Review of A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism". Shofar. 16 (4): 110–112. doi:10.1353/sho.1998.0086. JSTOR 42943988. S2CID 170371494.
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