On Sunday, May 31, the Hebrew College community will gather on our shared campus in Newton to celebrate our largest graduating class of graduates and ordainees, and to recognize the contributions of honorees and award winners who strengthen and inspire our community.

We are proud to confer honorary degrees upon Robert Bank, former President and CEO of American Jewish World Service, whose lifelong leadership has advanced human rights and global justice, and Gerald Chan, scientist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, whose work has transformed healthcare innovation. We will also present the Benjamin Shevach Memorial Award for Excellence in Jewish Educational Leadership to Sharon Feiman-Nemser, pioneering scholar of teacher education and Jewish learning, and the Sidney Hillson/Rose Bronstein Memorial Award for Promotion of Hebrew Language and Literature to Abigail Gilman, distinguished professor, noted scholar of Jewish literature, and beloved Hebrew College educator.

Join us as we honor these remarkable leaders and celebrate a dynamic cohort of graduates and ordainees at this joyful community milestone. (Pictured: Abigail Gilman, Gerald Chan, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Robert Bank)

Learn more...

To mark the 100th anniversary of Jewish Book Month, the Jewish Book Council launched Nu Reads, a bimonthly subscription series featuring contemporary Jewish fiction. Curated in partnership with acclaimed novelist Tova Mirvis, writer-in-residence at Nu Reads, the program invites readers into a shared literary experience of lively discussion and creative community-building. Hebrew College is partnering with Mirvis and our friends at Hummingbird Books in Newton, MA to host a Nu Reads book club facilitated by the author. We spoke with Mirvis about how Nu Reads began, the joys of reading communally, and what she loves — as a reader and a writer — about Jewish fiction.

Read the full interview... 

Hebrew College alumni are deeply woven into the fabric of the Greater Boston Jewish community, serving as inspiring leaders for communities in 38 Boston-area synagogues. They bring wisdom, compassion, and creativity to their roles as rabbis, spiritual leaders, educators, chaplains, and heads of nonprofits. Our rabbinical student interns lead services, support those in need, and help to strengthen the institutions that sustain Jewish life, making an impact across the region even as they pursue ordination. Together, students and alumni embody a shared commitment to Jewish learning, service, and community.

Explore where our alumni serve...

Jewish holidays function in part to emphasize the dissonance between ideal and actual. We build porous roofs over our sukkot, spill our crumbs into the river, set an extra plate and open the front door. In the moments of our greatest joy, we shatter glass. These rituals of rupture and disintegration allow us to confront the gulf between our noble aspirations and compromised reality. On other days our impulse might be to pretend the distance is short, but denying the vastness of this gulf does not bring us closer to our aspirations and instead only diminishes them. By their ritual design and very existence, our holidays force us to confront this contradiction.

Read 70 Faces...