Nathan Aviezer, Bar Ilan University
Professor Nathan Aviezer was born in Switzerland, grew up in Detroit, and received
his doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago. He then held a research
position at IBM Watson Research Center near New York. In 1967, Nathan and his
wife Dvora moved to Israel where he joined Bar Ilan University as Professor
of Physics and Chairman of the Department. The author of more than 100 scientific
articles on solid state physics, Professor Aviezer was elected in 1984 as a
fellow of the American Physical Society, in recognition of his important research
contributions to the theory of the electrical properties of metals and alloys.
In 1992, the Royal Society of London elected Aviezer to be a Royal Society Research
Professor of Physics. Aviezer has written two books about the engagement of
science and religion, In the Beginning (1990) and Fossils and Faith
(2001). The first book is in its eigth printing, and has been translated into
nine languages. Professor Aviezer also teaches a very popular course on "Torah
and Science" (the development of which was supported by a grant from the
John Templeton Foundation) at Bar Ilan University, and for the last seven years
he has organized in Israel an annual conference on this subject, that is attended
by hundreds. Also he was chairman of the organizing committee of the Science
and the Spiritual Quest (SSQ) conference that took place at Bar Ilan University
in 2002.
Noah J. Efron, Bar Ilan University
Dr. Noah J. Efron is chairman of the Graduate Program for the History &
Philosophy of Science at Bar Ilan University, where he specializes in the relationship
between science and religion, focusing on Jewish attitudes toward nature and
science. Efron received a Metanexus/Templeton grant for research, writing and
publication of a book exploring the constructive interaction of science and
religion, which he is presently writing, called Golem, God, and Man: Human
and Divine in the Age of Biotechnology. Efron has been a fellow of the
Dibner Institute at the Massachusetts Instituite of Technology and a Rothschild
Fellow at Harvard University. He received a B.A. with High Honors, from Swarthmore
College, and a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from Tel Aviv University.
He has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Tel Aviv University,
and the Jerusalem affiliate of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Dr. Efron recently
edited a special volume of Science in Context devoted to Jews and science
since the renaissance. He has written many essays appearing in academic journals,
books, and encyclopedias, and is a contributing writer for the Boston Book
Review. His book, Trembling with Fear, about religion in Israel,
is being published by Basic Books. Dr. Efron has been awarded grants from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Mellon, Rothschild, and Thomas
J. Watson Foundations, as well as the Israeli Academy for Higher Education.
He was also a member of the organizing committee of the Science and the Spiritual
Quest (SSQ) conference which took place at Bar Ilan University in 2002.
Menachem Fisch, Tel Aviv University
Professor Menachem Fisch is the President of the Israel Society for the History
and Philosophy of Science, and Chairman of the National Committee for History
and Philsosophy of Science of the Israel Academy of Science. He teaches at the
Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv
University, in the Graduate Program for History and Philosophy of Science at
Bar Ilan University, and he is a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute
for Advanced Judaic Studies, Jerusalem. Professor Fisch has held visiting research
fellowships at the Queen's College, Oxford, Trinity College, Oxford, Trinity
College, Cambridge, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and the Dibner Institute
for Advanced Study in the History of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. He has written two books about Victorian science, published
by Oxford University Press, in addition to his recent Rational Rabbis: Science
and Talmudic Culture, published by Indiana University Press. This last
book, like much of his current research, considers the elationship between Jewish
hermeneutic traditions and contemporary scientific methodology. Also he was
a member of the organizing committee of the of the Science and the Spiritual
Quest (SSQ) conference that took place at Bar Ilan University in 2002.
Aryeh Frimer, Bar Ilan Univeristy
Rabbi Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer is the Ethel and David Resnick Professor of Active
Oxygen Chemistry and former Chemistry Department Chairman at Bar Ilan University.
He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Brooklyn College with a B.S. degree in Chemistry
in 1969. At the same time he received his Rabbinical Ordination from Rabbi Yehudah
Gershuni, Yeshivat Eretz Israel, Brooklyn, N.Y. While a graduate student in
organic chemistry at Harvard University, Rabbi Frimer was appointed Assistant
Hillel Director, serving as Rabbi to the Harvard-Radcliffe Orthodox Minyan from
1969-1974. Upon completing his Ph.D. at Harvard, he moved to Israel becoming
a post-doctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science, before joining
the faculty of Bar Ilan in 1975. From 1990-to date he has also served as Senior
Research Associate at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Professor
Frimer has published 100 scientific articles, review papers and books in the
area of active oxygen chemistry. In addition to his scientific work, Rabbi Frimer
has also published and lectured internationally on science and the Jewish tradition.
Also he was a member of the organizing committee of the of the Science and the
Spiritual Quest (SSQ) conference that took place at Bar Ilan University in 2002.
Elia Leibowitz, Tel Aviv University
Elia Leibowitz is the son of one of Israel's most important public intellectuals
and an editor of the Encyclopedia Judaica (who died a decade ago).
The father, Yeshayahu, was a very pious radical leftist. The son, Eliah, is
the chairman of the astrophysics department at Tel Aviv and director of the
observatory, very secular, and also a major public intellectual, writing often
in the papers against the government. He is also very critical of the rabbinic
establishment. And he is brilliant.
Ely Merzbach, Bar Ilan University
Professor Ely Merzbach recently finished his term as Dean of the Exact Sciences
at Bar Ilan University. Before that he served as Chairman of the Department
of Mathematics. He has served as a director of the Israel Orthodox Scientists
Association, and has been instrumental in the planning and execution of many
national and international gatherings devoted to the engagement of religion
and science. In addition to publishing four books and approximately fifty papers
in mathematics, Prof. Merzbach has written almost twenty scholarly articles
on the relationship between mathematics and science and Jewish ritual and exegesis.
Also he was a member of the organizing committee of the Science and the Spiritual
Quest (SSQ) conference that took place at Bar Ilan University in 2002.
Hilary Putnam, Harvard University
Hilary Putnam is a philosopher, perhaps the greatest living philosopher (certainly
the greatest living American philosopher). He's spoken at UCSB's Templeton Lectures,
though this lecture is new.
Dov Schwartz, Bar Ilan University
Professor Dov Schwartz is Chairman of both the Department of Philosophy and
the Graduate Program for the Study of Contemporary Judaism at Bar Ilan University.
He is the author of eight books of Jewish philosophy, including Astrology
and Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought and several other books on Jewish
attitudes towards contemporary natural philosophy and science. He has written
nearly one hundred scholarly articles including "Changing Fronts Toward
Science in the Medieval Debates over Philsosophy" (Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy) and "La magie astrale dans la pensée
juive rationaliste" (Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Litteraire du
Moyen Âge).
Silvan Schweber, Brandeis University & Harvard
University
Sam Schweber is a renowned physicist who has since become a historian of science
as well, and he has written a wonderful book about Hans Bethe and Oppenheimer
that, among other things, muses beautifully about the relationships of their
religious backgrounds and commitments (both were secular jews, with complicated
relationships to their spiritual heritage) to their work, and especially to
the bomb.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Institute for Judaic
Studies in the CIS
Rabbi Steinsaltz is perhaps the greatest Jewish scholar of the age. He's written
an incredible commentary on the entire Talmud, which will probably still be
in use in 500 years. Recently, he's set up a sort of Jewish University in Russia.
He has dozens and dozens of books. (He's also Bob Pollack's spiritual advisor,
and has spent a fair amount of time at Columbia.)
Avy Susswein, Bar Ilan University
Avy Susswein is chairman of the Program in Brain Sciences of Bar Ilan University,
and a Professor in the Department of Life Sciences. He runs an enormously productive
laboratory, has trained dozens of students, and has published over seventy-five
scientific papers, most concerning the nervous system of mollusks. Prof. Susswein
received his B.A. from Yeshiva University and his Ph.D. from the Nw York University
School of Medicine. He completed post-doctoral fellowships at Columbia University,
Rockefeller University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Prof. Susswein
has taught seminars on philosophical and religious implications of biology,
and was recently invited to join an international discussion colloquium as part
of the Science and the Spiritual Quest (SSQ) conference that took place at Bar
Ilaan University in 2002.
Noam Zohar, Bar Ilan University
Rabbi Dr. Noam Zohar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy of
Bar Ilan University, where he is the chairman of the Graduate Program in Biotechnology.
He is also a Senior Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Rabbi
Dr. Zohar is among the world's foremost authorities on Jewish bio-medical ethics.
His books include Alternatives in Jewish Bioethics (SUNY Press) and
The Jewish Political Tradition, which he edited with the renowned philosopher
Michael walzer. Rabbi Dr. Zohar received his Ph.D. in philosophy fromthe Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University
of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, and has been a Faculty Fellow of the
Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions. He has also been an
advisor for Religious Policy to Israel's Minister of Education, and has served
and continues to serve on the ethics committe of several hospitals. He has published
over two dozen articles on the philosophical and religious implications and
impacts of scientific advances in medicine and biology.
University lately.