Adam S. Ferziger (; born November 10, 1964, in the
Flatbush
Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park to the nort ...
section of
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
) is an American intellectual and social historian whose research focuses on
Jewish religious movements
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called " denominations", include diverse groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Samaritans are also considered ethnic Jews by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, although they a ...
and religious responses to
secularization
In sociology, secularization () is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism or irreligion, nor are they automatica ...
and
assimilation in modern and contemporary North America, Europe and Israel.
Biography
A native of Riverdale, New York, Ferziger was educated at the SAR Academy and the Ramaz School in New York and in the study halls of Beit Midrash l'Torah and Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel.
itation neededHe received his B.A., M.A. (mentor Professor Jacob Katz), and rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University, and his Ph.D. Summa Cum Laude (mentor Professor Gershon Bacon) from Bar-Ilan University. He and his wife, Dr. Naomi (née Weiss) Ferziger (mentors Professor Ari Zivotofsky and Professor Ruth Feldman
, moved to Israel in 1989 and raised their six children in the city of Kfar Saba, where he is active in teaching and facilitating
Academic career
Ferziger holds the
Samson Raphael Hirsch
Samson Raphael Hirsch (; June 20, 1808 – December 31, 1888) was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the '' Torah im Derech Eretz'' school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed ''neo-Orthodoxy'', hi ...
Chair for Research of the Torah with ''Derekh Erez'' Movement in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...
,
Ramat Gan
Ramat Gan (, ) is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, located east of the municipality of Tel Aviv, and is part of the Gush Dan, Gush Dan metropolitan area. It is home to a Diamond Exchange District (one of the world's major diamond exch ...
, Israel. He is a senior associate at the
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and is co-convener of the annual Oxford Summer Institute for Modern and Contemporary Judaism.
He has served as a visiting professor/fellow in
College of Charleston (2017), Wolfson College,
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, UK (2013),
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...
, New South Wales, Australia (2012), and
University of Shandong, Jinan, China (2005). In 2011, he received Bar-Ilan's "Outstanding Lecturer" award.
In his capacity as a senior research fellow at Bar-Ilan's Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research, Ferziger authored major analyses of religious leadership, and of novel frameworks for promoting Jewish identity. He served for over ten years as a historian for Heritage Seminars to Eastern Europe. In the latter role he taught thousands of American youth about the legacy of Eastern European Jewry and the destruction of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. He has presented invited talks and participated in international conferences at institutions of higher learning worldwide including: Central European University – Budapest, Columbia University, Harvard University Law School, The Hebrew University - Jerusalem, New York University, Hebrew Union College - Los Angeles, Jewish Theological Seminary, Monasch University - Melbourne, Northwestern University, Open School – Belgrade; University of Oxford, Princeton University, Rice University, Tel Aviv University, UCLA, University of Cape Town, University of Chicago, University of Frankfurt, University of Hamburg, University of Scranton, University of Sydney, and Yeshiva University. He is also invited regularly to lecture publicly throughout Israel, North America, Continental Europe, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Published works
Books (author):
*
*
*''
Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism', Detroit, Mi: Wayne State University Press. 2015. ''National Jewish Book Award Winner''
Books (editor)
*
*
* ''Darkei Daniel - The Paths of Daniel: Studies in Judaism and Jewish Culture in Honor of Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber.'' Bar-Ilan University Press. 2017
* ''Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road Not Taken''. Academic Studies Press 2019.
Selected Articles:
*"Fluidity and Bifurcation: Critical Biblical Scholarship and Orthodox Judaism in Israel and North America," ''Modern Judaism'' 39, 3 (Sept. 2019), 233-270.
*"Female Leadership in Male Space: The Sacralization of the Orthodox Rabbi," ''The Journal of Religion'' 98:4 (October 2018): 490-516.
*"Foreign Ashes in Sovereign Space: Cremation and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, 1931–1990," ''Jewish Studies Quarterly'' 23, 4 (2016): 290-313.
*"Hungarian Separatist Orthodoxy and the Migration of its Legacy to America: The Greenwald-Hirschenson Debate,''"'' ''Jewish Quarterly Review'' 105, 2 (2015): 250-283.
*''"''Beyond Bais Yaakov, Orthodox Outreach and the Emergence of Haredi Women as Religious Leaders," ''Journal of Modern Jewish Studies'' 14, 1 (2015): 140-159.
*"On Fragmentary Judaism: The Jewish “Other” and the Worldview Of R. Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein," ''Tradition'' 47, 4 (2015), 34-68.
*"From Lubavitch to Lakewood: The 'Chabadization' of American Orthodoxy," Modern Judaism 33, 2 (2013), 101-124.
*"Abraham Geiger and the Denominational Approach to Jewish Religious Life," in Christian Wiese (ed.), Jüdische Existenz in de Moderne: Abraham Geiger und die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2013), 179-192.
*“Ashes to Outcasts: Cremation, Jewish Law, and Identity in Early Twentieth-century Germany,”AJS Review 36,1 (April 2012), 71–102.
*"'Outside the Shul': The American Soviet Jewry Movement and the Rise of Solidarity Orthodoxy (1964-1986)," Religion and American Culture 22, 1 (Winter 2012), 83-130
*"The Hamburg Cremation Controversy and the Diversity of German-Jewish Orthodoxy," Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 56, 1 (2011), 175-205.
*"Holocaust, Hurban, and Haredization: Pilgrimages to Eastern Europe and the Realignment of American Orthodoxy," Contemporary Jewry 31 (2011), 25-54.
*"The Road Not Taken: Rabbi Salamon Zvi Schück and the Legacy of Hungarian Orthodoxy," Hebrew Union College Annual (HUCA) 79 (2011), 107-140.
*"'Create for Yourself a Congregation': Parallel Changes in the Israeli and North American Rabbinates," in Yedidya Stern and Shuki Friedman (eds.), The Rabbinate (Ramat Gan and Jerusalem: Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law and Israel Democracy Institute, 2011), 203-252
ebrew
*"Between Catholic Israel and the K'rov Yisrael: Non-Jews in Conservative Synagogues (1982-2008)," Journal of Jewish Studies, LXI, 1 (Spring 2010), 88-116
*"Tradition at the Cusp of Modernity: A Sermon by Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz," Rafael Medoff (ed.), Rav Chessed: Essays in Honor of Rabbi Dr. Haskel Lookstein (New York: Ktav, 2009), 145-168.
*"Feminism and Heresy: The Construction of a Jewish Meta-Narrative," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77, 3 (September 2009), 494-546.
*"From Demonic Deviant to Drowning Brother: Reform Judaism in the Eyes of Orthodoxy (1983-2007)," Jewish Social Studies 15, 3 (Spring/Summer 2009), 56-88.
*"Religion for the Secular: The New Israeli Rabbinate," Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 7, 1 (March 2008), 67-90.
*"Holy Land in Exile: The Torah MiTzion Movement – Toward a New Paradigm for Religious Zionism," in
Chaim I. Waxman (ed.
Religious Zionism: Future Directions(New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2008), 373-414.
*"Church/Sect Theory and American Orthodoxy Reconsidered," in Stuart Cohen and Bernard Susser (eds.), Ambivalent Jew (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2007), 107-124.
*"The Religious Extremist as Halakhic Adjudicator – Rabbi Hayyim Sofer," in Meir Litvak and Ora Limor (eds.), Religious Extremism (Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar, 2007), 85-112
ebrew
*"The Emergence of the Community Kollel: A New Model for Addressing Assimilation," Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research - Research and Position Paper #13 (Ramat Gan, 2006).
*"Orthodox Identity and the Status of Nonobservant Jews: A Reconsideration of the Approach of Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger," in Yoseph Salmon, Aviezer Ravitzky, and Adam S. Ferziger (eds.), Orthodox Judaism – New Perspectives (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2006), 179-209
ebrew*Orthodox Judaism in America in the Late 20th Century," in Binyamin Lau (ed.), A People That Dwells Alone (Tel-Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2006), 324-341, 478-482
ebrew
*“Between Outreach and Inreach: Redrawing the Lines of the American Orthodox Rabbinate,” Modern Judaism 25 (2005), 237-263.
*“Religious Zealotry and Religious Law: Reexamining Conflict and Coexistence,” Journal of Religion (January 2004), 48-77.
*“Constituency Definition: The German-Orthodox Dilemma,” in Jack Wertheimer (ed.), Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality II (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2004), 535-568.
*“Training American Orthodox Rabbis to Play a Role in Confronting Assimilation: Programs, Methodologies and Directions,” Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research - Research and Position Paper #4 (Ramat Gan, 2003).
*�
Between “Ashkenazi” and Sepharad: An Early Modern German Rabbinic Response to Religious Pluralism in the Spanish-Portuguese Community�� Studia Rosenthaliana 35, 1 (Spring, 2001), 7-22.
*“The Lookstein Legacy: An American Orthodox Rabbinical Dynasty,” Jewish History 13, 1 (Spring 1999), 127-149.
*“The Hungarian Orthodox Rabbinate and Zionism: The Case of R. Salamon Zvi Schück,” Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies 11, IIIC (1993), 273-80.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferziger
American male writers
Bar-Ilan University alumni
Academic staff of Bar-Ilan University
Living people
1964 births
Historians of Jews and Judaism
Israeli historians of religion
Ramaz School alumni
Yeshiva University alumni
Yeshivat Har Etzion alumni