Faculty and Staff

Michael Weingrad, Academic Director

Michael Weingrad received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his PhD from the University of Washington. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Montague Burton Fellow in Jewish Studies at the University of Leeds, and a Harry Starr Fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. His teaching and research interests concern modern Jewish literature and culture. He has published articles in Prooftexts, Jewish Social Studies, AJS Review, Commentary, and other publications. His book, American Hebrew Literature and Jewish National Identity in the United States will appear with Syracuse University Press in 2010.

Natan Meir, Lorry I. Lokey Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies

Natan Meir received his Ph.D in Jewish history from Columbia University in 2003, taught at the University of Southampton (U.K.) from 2004 to 2008, and was a Yad Hanadiv postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in academic year 2007-08. His scholarly interest is modern Jewish history, focusing on the social and cultural history of East European Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His first book, Kiev: Jewish Metropolis, 1861-1914, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press.

Linda Maizels, Community Outreach Coordinator and Adjunct Faculty

Linda Maizels is completing her doctoral dissertation at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was a fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2008 and at the Brandeis Summer Institute for Israel Studies in 2009.

Ayal Yariv, Instructor in Hebrew

Ayal Yariv studied Hebrew Literature and Musicology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has a Certificate in Music Therapy from The David Yellin College of Education in Jerusalem. He also has a Certificate for Teachers of Hebrew as a Second Language from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Robert Liebman, Founding Academic Director

Jenn Director Knudsen, Associate Director of Development

Thanh Tran, Office Administrator

Affiliate and Adjunct Faculty:

John Ott, History
Patricia Schechter, History
Susan Danielson, English
Lee Medovoi, English
Nathan Cogan (Emeritus), English
Aart Lovenstein, adjunct faculty
Sherryll Mleynek, adjunct faculty
Zvi Raanan, adjunct faculty
Emanuel Rose, adjunct faculty
Jonathan Seidel, adjunct faculty