The 29th Annual Jacoby-Lunin Humanitarian Lecture featuring Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, PhD, on November 19 at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts is presented by Fairfield University’s Bennett Center for Judaic Studies.
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, PhD, spent his childhood moving from Toronto to New Jersey to Chicago, and beyond, often the new kid in a string of unfamiliar schools. He craved community but found himself isolated, a feeling that would later shape his restless drive to build connections across divides. At ten years old, he chose Judaism–his father was Jewish, his mother an Evangelical Christian.
After college, Rabbi Dr. Yanklowitz took a job at a corporate consulting firm, but the work felt hollow, a place where, as he put it, his soul “would die.” He packed up and moved to Israel, where he spent his days buried in Talmudic arguments and Jewish philosophy, the kind of dense, knotty debates that excited him. That immersion clarified his calling: to be an educator and activist willing to ask uncomfortable questions and push past easy answers.
Rabbi Dr. Yanklowitz is now the president and dean of Valley Beit Midrash—a national Jewish pluralistic adult learning and leadership center—and author of 30 books on Jewish ethics. He will speak at Fairfield University at the Dolan School of Business Event Hall on Thursday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m. He will address what he calls “A Moral Emergency”–the urgent ethical demands Judaism places on us today. Presented by Fairfield University’s Bennett Center for Judaic Studies, the annual Jacoby-Lunin Humanitarian Lecture brings together global activists, public servants, and scholars to explore social justice, human rights, and ethics, connecting Fairfield students and residents with prominent international voices.
