Part 2 of 2 - Are Christians Oved Avodah Zarah?

[James and Terry Hamilton]

Part 2 of 2 - Are Christians Oved Avodah Zarah?

A lecture by Conservative Rabbi Prof. David Novak, who is Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto and Member of University College, the Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto.

Prof. Novak is primarily engaged in the study of the philosophical aspects of the Jewish legal tradition, including research and writing in the area we call today political theory.


Novak is the author of thirteen books, most recently, The Jewish Social Contract: An Essay in Political Theology (Princeton University Press, 2005), Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005) and Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2000), which won the award of the American Academy of Religion for “Best Book in Constructive Religious Thought in 2000.” He has edited four books, and is the author of over 200 articles in scholarly and intellectual journals.

Novak is a founder, vice-president, and coordinator of the Jewish Law Panel of the Union for Traditional Judaism, and a founder and faculty member of the Institute of Traditional Judaism in Teaneck, New Jersey. He received his A.B. from the University of Chicago in 1961, his M.H.L. (Master of Hebrew Literature) in 1964, his Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown University in 1971 and his rabbinical diploma in 1966 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

From 1997 to 2002 he was also Director of the Jewish Studies Programme. He is a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, and a member of the Board of Consulting Scholars of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. In 1992-93 he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. In 1995 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion and Business Ethics at Drew University. In the fall of 2004 he was the Charles E. Test, M.D. Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Princeton University. In the spring of 2006 he was Visiting Professor of Religion at Princeton University.