Dr. Norman Cohen, Provost

Dr. Norman Cohen is Provost of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he is also Professor of Midrash.  Renowned for his expertise in Torah study and midrash (finding contemporary meaning from ancient biblical texts), he lectures frequently to audiences of many faiths.  Dr. Cohen was a participant in Bill Moyers’ Genesis:  A Living Conversation series on PBS.  His books include, Self, Struggle & Change:  Family Conflict Stories in Genesis and their Healing Insights for our Lives, Voices from Genesis:  Guiding us through the Stages of Life, The Way into Torah, Hineini in our Lives, and Moses and the Journey to Leadership:  Timeless Lessons of Effective Management from the Bible and Today’s Leadership (October 2006), all published by Jewish Lights

Dr. Sharon Gillerman, Director of the Edgar F. Magnin School of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Jewish History 
Sharon Gillerman is Associate Professor of Jewish History on the Los Angeles campus and adjunct Associate Professor of History in the department of History at the University of Southern California.  Her publications focus on early twentieth-century Jewish history with particular emphasis on gender, the body, Jewish identity and popular culture in the interwar period. Professor Gillerman’s first book, Germans into Jews: Remaking the Jewish Social Body in the Weimar Republic (Stanford University Press, 2009) reconsiders the meaning and process of assimilation by focusing on communal efforts to reinvigorate the Jewish community through strengthening the family, welfare, and increasing reproduction.  Presently, she is writing a book on the performances and reception of the popular Polish Jewish circus strongman and vaudeville star Zishe (Siegmund) Breitbart in eastern Europe, central Europe, and the United States. In addition to teaching at HUC-JIR and USC, Professor Gillerman has also taught at Brandeis University, UCLA, the University of Hamburg, and Harvard University.

Rabbi Michael Marmur, Dean

Michael Marmur has recently been appointed the Vice-President for Academic Affairs of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. For over ten years he served as Dean of the College-Institute's Jerusalem School, and he is a graduate of the Israel Rabbinic Program. In the 1990s he worked as a rabbi and teacher at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa. Born and raised in England, Michael earned a BA in History from the University of Oxford before making aliya in 1984. He holds MA and Ph.D degrees from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and specializes in the thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel. He has lectured and taught around the world, and was a scholar-in-residence at the 2005 Biennial. Michael and his wife Sarah Bernstein, who works in the field of Jewish-Arab dialogue, live in Jerusalem with their three teenage children.  

Dr. Michael Meyer, Director of HUC Press
Michael A. Meyer is Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His books have won three Jewish Book Awards.  They include The Origins of the Modern Jew; Response to Modernity:  A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism; the edition, together with W. Gunther Plaut, of The Reform Judaism Reader; and, most recently the edition of Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi: An Autobiography.  He holds an honorary degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is currently the international president of the Leo Baeck Institute.