Retired British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks to teach at NYU, YU

Sacks will spend 3 months a year teaching Jewish taught at two American universities.

By MAYA SHWAYDER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
UK rabbi Jonathan Sacks 521 (photo credit: JONATHAN SACKS)
UK rabbi Jonathan Sacks 521
(photo credit: JONATHAN SACKS)
NEW YORK – Lord Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, 65, has accepted a dual professorship at New York University and Yeshiva University.
He will be the Kressel and Efrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University and the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished professor of Judaic Thought at New York University. Sacks will spend three months per year teaching in New York.
In a statement on his website, Sacks said he was “excited” about the new opportunity.
“This dual intellectual challenge is the perfect context to take forward the project of a Judaism engaged with the world in conversation with students in one of the major centers of Jewish life,” he said.
John Sexton, president of NYU, said the university was “proud and delighted” to have Sacks on staff, and called him “one of the world’s most prominent voices on issues of Jewish faith and the Jewish community.”
The joint appointment between YU and NYU will “contribute to the overall vibrancy of New York’s extraordinary intellectual community,” Sexton said.
YU President Richard M. Joel said he hoped Sacks would “inspire the next generation of Jewish leadership and to be a voice to the Jewish people and world for our timeless values.
“I join with the extraordinary John Sexton in celebrating yet another way for two great universities to work together to advance an agenda that matters,” he said.
Sacks served as the UK’s chief rabbi for 22 years until September.