Presenter Biographies 2009

Nathan Aviezer

Nathan Aviezer is Professor of Physics and former Chairman of the Physics Department of Bar-Ilan University. The author of more than 140 scientific articles on solid state physics, Aviezer was honored by his colleagues by being elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Research Professor of the Royal Society of London.

In addition to his scientific research, Aviezer has a long-standing interest in the relationship between Torah and science. He is the author of two books: In the Beginning (translated into nine languages) and Fossils and Faith (translated into three languages). Aviezer teaches a course at Bar-Ilan University on “Torah and Science,” which was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize. Finally, Aviezer organizes an annual Torah and Science Conference which attracts hundreds of participants from all over Israel.

Born in Switzerland and raised in United States, Professor Aviezer received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, and subsequently held a senior research position at the IBM Watson Research Center near New York. In 1967, Nathan and his wife Dvora made aliya to Israel. The Aviezers have four children and quite a few grandchildren, and they live in Petach Tikva.

Isaac Elishakoff

Dr. Isaac Elishakoff is the J.M. Rubin Distinguished Professor of Structural Reliability, Safety, and Security in the department of mechanical engineering at Florida Atlantic University. He also teaches in the mathematics department. From 1972 to 1989 he was faculty member of the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, where he became a professor of aeronautical engineering in 1984. He also served as Visiting Freimann Chair Professor at the University of Notre Dame, as well as Visiting Kioter Chair Professor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Visiting Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in the USA, and the University of Tokyo in Japan. A Fellow of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science at the University of Kyoto, he was a Visiting Eminent Scholar at Beihang University in Beijing, and Distinguished Castigliano Professor at the University of Palermo, Italy, and Visiting Professor at the University Center of Ariel in Samaria. He also served as a distinguished lecturer of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is an associate editor of four international journals and general advisory editor of Elsevier Science Publishers in Oxford, England.

Special Guest
Minister Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz

Daniel Hershkowitz was born in Haifa, where was ordained by the Chief Rabbi of the city and where he received the degrees of BSc, MSc, and DSc in mathematics at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He taught mathematics there from 1971 to the present, with the exception of 1983-1986 and 1988-1989, when he was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His main professional field is linear algebra and matrix analysis, including inverse eigenvalue problems, combinatorial spectral theory, matrix stability, nonnegative matrices and their applications. In 2002 and again in 2005 he was elected president of the International Linear Algebra Society. In addition, he heads and participates in many academic committees and forums in Israel. He is the editor-in-chief of the Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra and a senior editor of the journal Linear Algebra and Its Applications. In 1982 he was awarded the Landau Research Prize in Mathematics; in 1990, the New England Academic Award for excellence in research; in 1990, the Technion’s Award for Excellence in Teaching; and in 1991, the Henri Gutwirth Award for Promotion of Research. The recipient of numerous national and international research grants, Professor Hershkowitz has published over eighty articles in professional mathematics journals. Parallel to his academic career, Daniel Hershkowitz serves as the rabbi of the Ahuza neighborhood of Haifa and is active in many areas of religious life in Israel. Elected to head the Jewish Home political party in 2008, Rabbi Professor Hershkowitz was appointed Minister of Science in the current Netanyahu government. As a member of the Knesset he is active in the lobby to increase tolerance between the religious and secular sectors of Israeli society. Married to Shimona, who is a principal of a special education high school, they have five children.

Conference Organizer
Nathan Katz

Nathan Katz , Ph.D., is professor of religious studies and founder-director of the Program in the Study of Spirituality at Florida International University. Arguably the world's leading authority on Jewish communities in India, his work has focused on the cultural interactions between Judaic and Indian civilizations. He is co-founder and co-editor of "The Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies" and was one of eight delegates at the historical 1990 Tibetan-Jewish dialogue hosted by the Dalai Lama, and recently keynoted the third Hindu-Jewish summit in New York. Of his fifteen books, his latest is a memoir, "Spiritual Journey Home - Eastern Mysticism to the Western Wall" (2009), and his 2000 book, "Who Are the Jews of India?" was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Studies.

Conference Organizer
Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar

Since receiving ordination from the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brooklyn in 1968, Sholom D. Lipskar has worked as an emissary for the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In 1973 he founded the Landow Yeshiva Center in Miami Beach, Florida. He has served as its principal and dean of its elementary, academy, and high school studies, and was directly responsible for training its rabbinical students. In 1981, he founded The Shul in Surfside, Florida. As its head rabbi he is both the spiritual leader and educational programmer for all ages. Also in 1981, Rabbi Lipskar founded the Aleph Institute and the Educational Academy for the Elderly, both based in Surfside. The Aleph Institute is a non-profit national humanitarian organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for Jews in limited environments, including prisoners and military personnel and their families. Rabbi Lipskar has created alternative punishment philosophies and developed unique educational opportunities for the general public in the field of treatment of closed populations. Rabbi Lipskar is the founder and chief organizer of the Miami International Torah and Science Conferences.

Dr. John D. Loike

Dr. Loike serves as co-Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Physiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of Special Projects in Columbia University’s Center for Bioethics. His research is in the area of immunotherapy of cancer and infections. He teaches Cross-roads in Bioethics and Bioethics for Biomedical Engineers at Columbia College. Dr. Loike also is the creator and Managing Editor of the Columbia University Journal of Bioethics and directs the Thailand-based summer intership program called Bioethical Cross-cultural Education Programs (BioCEP) . He has over 100 publications in major scientific and bioethical journals, has co-authors several books and is a frequent speaker at many professional events in the Jewish community in the US and around the world.

Marc Olesky

Marc Olesky holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Florida. He has been a member of The Shul since1982, the second year of its inception, and has participated in two previous Torah and Science conferences.

Professor Vera Schwarcz

Vera Schwarcz holds the Freeman Chair of History and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She is author of six books, including Bridge over Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory, published by Yale University Press in 1998 and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Schwarcz is also a published poet, whose poetry has appeared in B’Or Ha’Torah 10, 13, 15, and 16. Her most recent collection of poems, In the Garden of Memory, is a collaborative exhibit with Israeli artist Chava Pressburger, which was shown in Connecticut and Prague. Place and Memory: Singing Crane Garden is forthcoming from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, MD

Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, MD is an associate clinical professor of medical ethics at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. He is the author of The Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics, published in seven volumes in Hebrew (two editions) and three volumes in English (translated by Dr. Fred Rosner), for which he was awarded the Israel Prize in 1999. Professor Steinberg is a senior pediatric neurologist at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. He directs the Medical Ethics Unit at Shaare Zedek. Head of the editorial board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, he is also director of Yad Harav Herzog, and a member of national and international societies of child neurology, medical ethics, and Jewish medical ethics.In Israel, Professor Steinberg is a member of the National Bioethics Council, the chairman of the Dying Patient Committee, the chairman of the Organ Transplantation Committee, the chairman of the Altruistic Live-Organ Donations Committee, a member of the Brain-Death Criteria Committee, a member of The Status of the Fetus and Pre-Embryo Committee, and the chairman of the Pathological Specimens Committee. He is the author and editor of thirty books in forty-eight volumes and 242 articles and chapters in scientific journals and books on Jewish medical ethics, general medical ethics, the history of medicine, medicine and law, and pediatric neurology. He has given over 3000 expert witness opinions in court cases on pediatric neurology and medical ethics.

Rabbi Professor Moshe D. Tendler

Rabbi Professor Moshe D. Tendler, noted authority on medical ethics and the relationship of medicine and science to Jewish law, is the rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Yeshiva University-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), professor of biology at Yeshiva College, and the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Chair in Jewish Medical Ethics at Yeshiva University.

Rabbi Tendler was ordained at RIETS in 1949 and earned a PhD in biology from Columbia University in 1957. Since 1969, he has served on the Medical Ethics Task Force of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, for which he edited Medical Ethics and Halakhah. For six years he served as its chairman. He is also chairman of the Bioethical Commission of the Rabbinical Council of America. He has been a member of the board of directors of Americans for Medical Progress, Inc. and is a member of number of ethics commissions. A former president of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, Rabbi Tendler is author of Pardes Rimonim (a text on Jewish family life); Practical Medical Halakhah; Care of the Critically Ill—Responsa of Rav Moshe Feinstein; as well as many articles on science and religion in leading publications. He is frequently consulted by the media and public officials on ethical issues.

Zion Zohar

Professor Zion Zohar is Director and chair of the President Navon Program for the Study of Sephardic and Oriental Jewry- F.I.U. and editor of the Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry. His graduate & doctorate work was in Jewish philosophy and mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, N.Y.U, and H.U.C where he earned two Masters and one Doctorate degree in Jewish Thought and Hebrew Literature. He has held visiting teaching/scholarship positions at University of Miami, Columbia University, J.T.S and H.U.C. In addition, he has received numerous research fellowships at Misgav Yerushalayim- Sephardic Research Center- Hebrew University, American Jewish Archives; Crosscurrents Fellowships- Columbia University and the Institute for Advanced Studies- Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has many publications to his credit; the most relevant to his talk include: “Oriental Jewry Confronts Modernity: The Case of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,”; “Rabbi Israel Najara & Moroccan Jewish Petitionery Poetry,”; “Spirituality, Kavvanah, and Ethics: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World,” & Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times.