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18
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R
abbi
A
aron
D. P
anken
,
P
h
.
D.
R
abbi Aaron D. Panken,
Ph.D., is the 12th President
in the 139-year history of
Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion.
As HUC-JIR President,
Dr. Panken leads the four-
campus international
institution of higher learning and seminary
for Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR’s campuses in
Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and New York
provide the academic and professional training
programs for the Reform Movement’s rabbis,
cantors, educators, and nonprofit management
professionals, and offer graduate programs for
scholars of all faiths. HUC-JIR’s nearly 4,000
active alumni serve the Reform Movement’s 1.5
million members and nearly 900 congregations,
representing the largest Jewish denomination
in North America, and the growing Progressive
Movement in Israel and around the world. They also
serve in leadership positions in Jewish educational,
communal, cultural, and social service institutions,
in hospital and military chaplaincy roles, in Jewish
summer camping and Israel youth programs, and at
colleges and universities as faculty and directors of
Hillel student centers.
Ordained at HUC-JIR in New York in 1991,
Rabbi Panken has served as a member of the faculty
teaching Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature
since 1995, Dean of Students (1996–1998), Dean
of the New York Campus (1998–2007), and Vice
President for Strategic Initiatives (2007–2010).
An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship,
Dr. Panken earned his doctorate in Hebrew and
Judaic Studies at New York University. He currently
serves on faculty for the Wexner Foundation and
the Editorial Board of
Reform Judaism
magazine,
and has served on the Rabbinical Placement
Commission, the Birthright Education Committee,
the CCAR Ethics Committee, and in a variety of
other leadership roles within the Reform Movement
and greater Jewish community. Prior to teaching
at the College-Institute, he served as a
congregational rabbi at Congregation Rodeph
Sholom in New York City and as a rabbinical
intern at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale,
NY. A native of New York City, Rabbi Panken
graduated from Johns Hopkins University’s
Electrical Engineering program and is a certificated
commercial pilot and sailor.
His publications include
The Rhetoric of Innovation
(
University Press of America, 2005), which explores
legal change in Rabbinic texts, and articles in
leading academic journals and scholarly volumes
exploring his research interests in the historical
development of legal concepts and terms, narrative
development, and development of holiday
observances. He has lectured widely at academic
conferences and synagogues throughout North
America and served as visiting faculty at universities
in Australia and China.