Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership (Spertus College or Spertus) is a private educational center in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

. Spertus offers learning opportunities that are "rooted in Jewish wisdom and culture and open to all" although it is not affiliated with any single branch of

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...

."About"
on the Spertus Institute website Graduate programs and workshops "train leaders and engage individuals in exploration of Jewish life." Public programs include films, speakers, seminars, concerts, and exhibits — at the institute's main campus at 610 S. Michigan Avenue, as well as in the Chicago suburbs and online. Spertus offers graduate degrees in Jewish Professional Studies, Jewish Studies, and until 2016, Nonprofit Management — accredited by

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), also known as the North Central Association, was a membership organization, consisting of colleges, universities, and schools in 19 U.S. states engaged in educational accreditation. It ...

— as well as professional workshops and a range of public educational and cultural programs. Well-known presenters have included

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

Justice

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...

, author

Jonathan Safran Foer Jonathan Safran Foer (; born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novels '' Everything Is Illuminated'' (2002), '' Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'' (2005), '' Here I Am'' (2016), and for his non-fiction works ''Eati ...

, architect

Moshe Safdie Moshe Safdie ( he, משה ספדיה; born July 14, 1938) is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author, with Israeli, Canadian, and American citizenship. He is known for incorporating principles of socially responsible des ...

, hip-hop artist

Y-Love Yitz Jordan (born January 5, 1978), better known by his stage name Y-Love, is an American hip hop artist. An Orthodox Jew, Jordan was formerly Hasidic.Jerry Portwood"Y-Love is Ready for Love,"'' Out'', May 15, 2012. He is a web developer, activis ...

, pianist/actor/playwright

Hershey Felder Hershey Felder (born July 9, 1968) is a pianist, actor, and playwright known for his portrayals of classical and American composers on the theatrical stage. Early life Felder was born in Montreal, Quebec, to Jacob Felder (born 1929 in Ustrzyk ...

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

columnist

Thomas Friedman Thomas Loren Friedman (; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for '' The New York Times''. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global ...

, Psychologist Dr.

Tal Ben-Shahar Tal Ben-Shahar Tal Ben-Shahar (Hebrew: טל בן-שחר; born 1970), also known as Tal David Ben-Shachar, is an American and Israeli teacher, and writer in the areas of positive psychology and leadership. As a lecturer at Harvard University, ...

, and statistician

Nate Silver Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, writer, and poker player who analyzes baseball (see sabermetrics), basketball, and elections (see psephology). He is the founder and editor-in-chief of '' FiveThirtyE ...

. Honorary degree recipients from 1949 to 2011 have included Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, former

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i Ambassador to the United States

Abba Eban Abba Solomon Meir Eban (; he, אבא אבן ; born Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban; 2 February 1915 – 17 November 2002) was an Israeli diplomat and politician, and a scholar of the Arabic and Hebrew languages. During his career, he served as For ...

, Rabbi

Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish T ...

, author and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in F ...

, author and Nobel Literature Laureate

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

, feminist author

Betty Friedan Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book '' The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...

, actor

Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy (; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the '' Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series in 1966, th ...

, and

Hazzan A ''hazzan'' (; , lit. Hazan) or ''chazzan'' ( he, חַזָּן , plural ; Yiddish ''khazn''; Ladino ''Hasan'') is a Jewish musician or precentor trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer. In English, this ...

Alberto Mizrahi.

History

The institute was founded in 1924 as Chicago's College of Jewish Studies. In 1970, it was renamed Spertus College to honor donations made by entrepreneurs (and brothers) Maurice and .

Architecture of the Spertus Institute building

In November 2007, Spertus Institute opened an award-winning, environmentally sustainable facility at 610 S. Michigan Avenue. Designed by Chicago-based

Krueck and Sexton Architects Krueck Sexton Partners (formerly Krueck + Sexton Architects) is an architecture practice in Chicago, Illinois, United States, founded by Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton in 1979. Tom Jacobs was named the third principal in 2011 and now serves as one of ...

, the building features interconnected interior spaces and an unusual ten-story faceted window wall that provides views of the Chicago skyline, Grant Park, and

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

. This window wall is built from 726 individual pieces of glass in 556 different shapes. The building also houses a 400-seat theater, space for community events and

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

catering facilities. Like the surrounding buildings, many constructed in the period of architectural innovation that followed the

Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 1 ...

of 1871, this building is forward-looking in its design and use of materials, while maintaining respect for its setting. Like the bays of its 19th- and 20th-century neighbors, the facets that create the façade's dynamic crystalline form allow light to extend into the narrow building, while expanding the views enjoyed from inside. The geometry of the façade is unique because the surface is constantly tilting in three dimensions, resulting in individual units of glass that are parallelograms rather than rectangles. At the same time, the average size of each of the façade's individual panes of glass is consistent with the standard size of the windows in the buildings up and down Michigan Avenue. The Spertus building was the first new construction in the

Historic Michigan Boulevard District The Historic Michigan Boulevard District is a historic district in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States encompassing Michigan Avenue between 11th (1100 south in the street numbering system) or Roosevelt ...

after the area was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2002. The cost of the Spertus project was more than $50 million.Blair Kamin, "Blades of Glass," ''Chicago Tribune'', November 21, 2007. In 2011, Meadville Lombard Theological School, a

Unitarian Universalist Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to: Christian and Christian-derived theologies A Unitarian is a follower of, or a member of an organisation that follows, any of several theologies referred to as Unitarianism: * Unitarianism (1565–present) ...

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy ...

, relocated from its Hyde Park location to the sixth floor of the Spertus building. Academic and administrative tasks of the school now take place in the Spertus building.

Senior staff and faculty

*Dr. Dean P. Bell is the ninth president and chief executive officer of Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. He has a PhD and MA from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

, and a BA from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, and is the author of ''Jews in the Early Modern World''. *Dr. Hal M. Lewis is chancellor, a position he took in 2018 after serving for a decade as president and chief executive officer. An expert in Jewish leadership, he is the author of ''From Sanctuary to Boardroom: A Jewish Approach to Leadership'' and ''Models and Meanings in the History of Jewish Leadership''. Dr. Lewis has a DJS from Spertus. *Dr. Keren E. Fraiman is dean and chief academic officer. *Ellen Hattenbach is the vice president of external relations. She is the former chair of the Jewish United Fund Division for Trades, Industries & Professions, and a graduate of Spertus Institute's Certificate in Jewish Leadership.

Notable former faculty

*Rabbi Dr.

Byron Sherwin Rabbi Byron Lee Sherwin (February 18, 1946 – May 22, 2015) was a Jewish scholar and author with expertise in theology, inter-religious dialogue, mysticism and Jewish ethics. Background and career A rabbi in the Conservative Judaism movement, he ...

(1946–2015) was director of doctoral programs. A native of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Dr. Sherwin received his PhD from the

’s prestigious Committee on the History of Culture. He received his Rabbinical Ordination from

Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studie ...

(JTSA) where he was a protégé of

. He authored many books including ''Golems Among Us: How a Jewish Legend Can Help Us Navigate the Biotech Century,'' ''Jewish Ethics for the 21st Century,'' and ''Sparks Amidst the Ashes: The Spiritual Legacy of Polish Jewry.''

References

External links