HUC-JIR Names First Four Panken Professorships
(JTA) — The first four Aaron D. Panken Professorships have been named.
The professors, who serve on each of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s four campuses in Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and New York, will be funded by a $12 million endowment contributed by nearly 1,000 donors in memory of Panken.
Panken, who served as the president of HUC-JIR from 2014-2018, was killed in May piloting a small aircraft in the Hudson Valley area of New York state.
The first Panken professors are:
Jennifer Grayson, PhD, assistant professor of History at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati;
Rabbi Dalia Marx ’02, Ph.D., Professor of Liturgy and Midrash at the Taube Family Campus in Jerusalem;
Rabbi Joseph A. Skloot ’10, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual History at HUC-JIR/New York;
Rabbi Dvora E. Weisberg ’11, Ph.D., Professor of Rabbinics and Director of the School of Rabbinical Studies at the Jack H. Skirball Campus in Los Angeles.
A day of learning led by the four professors will be held near the date of the rabbi’s first yahrzeit.
