Biderman Lecture – Building a Home out of Books: One Family’s Story of Migration, Providence, and the Printed Word

Join the Program in Judaic Studies and the Center for Jewish Life for this year’s Biderman Lecture, with Joseph A. Skloot, Ph.D.,’05, on Monday, October 28. The lecture will explore how three generations of the ibn Yahya family, Jewish fugitives from Portugal in 1496, retold the story of their family’s escape and how they understood that trauma in theological terms. Settling on the Italian peninsula, the ibn Yahyas were active in the burgeoning Hebrew printing business and, while never finding a permanent settlement, they helped fashion a new and defiant Jewish print culture in the face of enduring persecution. Open to the public. Refreshments will be available. More about Joseph A. Skloot, Ph.D., ’05 Joseph A. Skloot, Ph.D., ’05, is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Associate Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion/New York and the Associate Director of the Tisch/Star Fellowship program. He is a historian of Jewish culture and religious thought in the early modern and modern periods. His research explores the history of Hebrew books, Jewish-Christian relations, the development of Jewish law, and Reform Jewish theology. Skloot is currently at work on two projects: a biography of three generations of the ibn Yahya family, exiles from Spain who established themselves as leaders of Italian Jewry during the sixteenth century; and a shorter study of the ways the technologies of printing and digitization have changed how Jewish thinkers have understood what it means to be a human being and a Jew. Prior to his appointment to HUC-JIR’s faculty, Skloot served as Associate Rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. He was chair of the Worship and Practice Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) for five years, overseeing the production of the Reform movement’s liturgies. Currently, Skloot is advising the CCAR on the production of a new Torah commentary. He is a sought-after teacher of adult learners, and he has served on the faculty of The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center in New York, as well as a scholar-in-residence at congregations across the U.S. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish History from Columbia University, his rabbinical ordination from HUC-JIR, and his A.B. in History from Princeton University.