Arthur Green

Arthur Green is an American Jewish rabbi and educator.

Arthur (Art) Green grew up in Newark, New Jersey in a nonobservant Jewish home. He describes his father as a "militant atheist," but his mother, from a traditional family, felt obligated to give her son a Jewish education.Being Art Green http://hebrewcollege.edu/hct/spring-summer_2003/focus/beinggreen.html] Raised in the Conservative movement, Green attended Camp Ramah. In 1959, he studied at Brandeis University, where he went through a crisis of faith and sought new approaches to Judaism. Green's professors at Brandeis included Nahum Glatzer and Alexander Altmann. After earning his Ph.D., Green became Philip W. Lown professor (now emeritus) of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. In 1967, he was ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Green has published many works on Jewish mysticism and hasidism. Invited to deliver a series of lectures at Yale University, Green was described as "one of the preeminent authorities on Jewish spirituality, mysticism and Hasidism." [http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/06-09-26-03.all.html]

In 1968, Green was one of the founders of Havurat Shalom. In 1987-1993, he served as Dean and President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. In 2003, he became the first Dean for the non-denominational rabbinical program at the Boston-area Hebrew College. He also serves as the Irving Brudnick Professor of Jewish Theology and Mysticism at Hebrew College.

Green is a founder of Neo-Hasidism, the significant revival of interest in Hasidic Judaism on the part of non-Orthodox Jews in different decades due to the writings of non-Orthodox teachers of Hasidic Judaism. Green has done this through his scholarly and spiritual writing and teaching, his involvement in Havurat Shalom, and his participation as a faculty member in the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, among other activities.

Published work

*"Devotion and Commandment: The Faith of Abraham in the Hasidic Imagination", The Efroymson Lectures of 1986. Hebrew University Press, 1989.
*"A Guide to the Zohar". Stanford University Press, 2003.
*Ed. "Jewish Spirituality". Crosswood Books, 1987.
*"Keter: the Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism". Princeton University Press, 1997.
*Co-editor. "Mysticism, Hermeneutics, and Religion: Studies in Judaism". SUNY Press, 1984.
*"Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jewish Theology". Jason Aaronson, 1992.
*Editor, "Kol Ha-Neshamah". The Reconstructionist Prayer Book, 1989.
*"These Are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life". Woodstock VT: Jewish Lights, 1999.
*"The Language of Truth: Teachings from the Sefer Emet". Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998.
*Ed. & trans.. "Upright Practices and The Light of the Eyes: Homilies on Genesis, Menahem of Chernobyl". Paulist Press, 1982.
*"Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav". University of Alabama Press, 1980.
*"Your Word is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer" (co-ed. Barry Holtz). Paulist Press, 1993.

References

*Michael Fagenblat. "A Way through the World" "The Jerusalem Report" March 24, 2003
*Joseph Dan. Review: "Green's 'Tormented Master'" in "The Jewish Quarterly Review" 74:3 (Jan. 1984), pp. 333-336