This Friday, May 13, Stephen Wise Temple’s weekly Shabbat evening services will feature a special guest speaker: Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., the President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Services will begin in our main sanctuary at 6:15 p.m., and can be streamed online via our web page, Facebook, or YouTube.
Rehfeld, a leading political scientist and distinguished leader of the Jewish community, will give a speech entitled: “A Vision for the Future of American Jewish Leadership: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Rehfeld’s core academic values of thinking, writing, and teaching are central to the work he has done both in the academic world and as a leader of the Jewish community. He has published numerous articles on topics in political philosophy, redistricting, and the use of the Hebrew Bible for political purposes in a range of scholarly journals. He is an advocate for pluralism, inclusion, and racial and social justice. He is an activist in combatting antisemitism, advancing peace and security for the state of Israel, and strengthening the ties binding Jews worldwide.
From 2012 to 2019, he served as the President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, which he galvanized by implementing a bottom-up, community-focused engagement approach that led to sustained growth and expansion of services, including a new center for pluralistic adult Jewish education. He led his community through multiple security and bomb threats, as well as the desecration of the Chesed Shel Emeth Jewish Cemetery, and offered guidance to other communities facing similar challenges. He fought the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement by focusing on expanding mutually beneficial economic and cultural partnerships between the state of Missouri, the St. Louis region, and Israel.
Prior to his service for the Federation, Rehfeld served as an Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University from 2001 to 2019. Rehfeld, who earned his Ph.D. in political science (2000) and his master’s in public policy (1994) from the University of Chicago, graduated Phi Beta Kappa in the Philosophy Honors Program at the University of Rochester (1989).
Holding the post once held by Stephen Wise Temple’s namesake, Rehfeld now leads North America’s leading institution of higher Jewish education. The four-campus international institution educates leaders to serve the Reform Movement and the Jewish people worldwide as rabbis, cantors, educators, and nonprofit management professionals, and offers graduate programs to scholars and clergy of all faiths. He also holds a tenured faculty position as Professor of Political Thought. His full biography is available here.