Courses by instructor: Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg

Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg – Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg is currently writing a comprehensive theology of Judaism as the religion of tikkun olam – seeking to perfect the world through the victory of life over death. In 2007, he completed a 10 year term as President of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation. Alongside Michael Steinhardt and his son, JJ Greenberg, zichrono livracha, he played a founders role in the JLN initiated partnerships which include such major projects as birthright israel, the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE, and MAKOR (now Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y). Greenberg also served as Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council from 2000-2002. Rabbi Greenberg has written extensively on theology after the Holocaust, the theory and practice of pluralism, and on the theology of Jewish-Christian relations. An ordained Orthodox rabbi, a Harvard Ph.D. and scholar, he has been a seminal thinker in confronting the Holocaust as an historical transforming event and Israel as the Jewish assumption of power and the beginning of a third era in Jewish history. Rabbi Greenberg is the author of The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays (Touchstone Books, 1988), Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World (Rowan and Littlefield, 1998), and For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter between Judaism and Christianity (Jewish Publication Society, 2004) From 1974 through 1997, he served as founding President of CLAL - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a pioneering institution in the development of adult and leadership education in the Jewish community and a leading organization in intra-Jewish dialogue and the work of Jewish unity. In the book, Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, Professor Steven T. Katz wrote, “No Jewish thinker has had a greater impact on the American Jewish community in the last two decades than Irving (Yitz) Greenberg.”