黑料社

Dec 6, 2002 -- Richard Joel seems undaunted by the fact that some of the faculty and lay leadership at Yeshiva University鈥檚 rabbinical school opposed his becoming chief executive officer of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, the position he was elected to last week along with president of 黑料社 All.Joel, 52, said his skills for the new posts include 鈥渢aking institutions where people look askance at my capacities and being able to empower them. 鈥淯ltimately,鈥� he added in an interview this week, 鈥渢he success of the president of the institution will not be based on how I shine but on how others shine, and I am pretty good at lighting Chanukah lights.鈥� Joel鈥檚 election to become the fourth president in YU history was widely seen as a victory for the centrist element of Modern Orthodoxy. In the spring he will succeed Dr. Norman Lamm, who has led the flagship institution of the movement since 1976. For the past 14 years Joel was president and international director of Hillel, and he is widely viewed as one of the most dynamic leaders in American Jewry for resuscitating the Jewish campus organization and making it a major presence at colleges. Joel becomes the first YU president who is neither a rabbinic nor academic scholar. His lack of rabbinic authority was a major point of contention with some affiliated with the rabbinic school. Two of the rabbis, Michael Rosensweig and Mayer Twersky, were invited by RIETS chairman Julius Berman to address the RIETS board, comprised of more than 40 members, before the vote last Thursday evening. (The meeting took place after the board of trustees of YU elected Joel by a vote of 30-2.) The rabbis offered impassioned speeches as to why Yeshiva should be led by a rabbinic scholar, and voiced concern that YU could become a more secular school, like Brandeis University or Bar-Ilan in Israel. But after three hours of ensuing discussion and debate, Joel was elected in a secret ballot as chief executive officer of RIETS. Rabbi Lamm will maintain his current position as rosh yeshiva, or dean, of RIETS for the near future. In the interview, Joel said he is not an ideologue and prefers to focus on 鈥渢aking an institution with great successes, and a real internal dialectic, and moving it forward in an ongoing confrontation with Torah U鈥橫addah [religious and secular knowledge],鈥� which he described as 鈥渧iewing the challenges of civilization through the prism of eternal values.鈥� He said he hopes to carry out his duties 鈥渨ith a deep underpinning of kavod ha-briyot [respect for all mankind] and a commitment to excellence.鈥� Joel added that he and his wife, Esther, a longtime Jewish educator, place 鈥淭orah at the center of our lives.鈥� As to whether he will be weakened at RIETS because he is not a rabbinic authority, Joel pointed out that he did not pick the selection process, adding: 鈥淲hoever I am, I am.鈥� He said he hopes his children will become Torah scholars 鈥� his son, Avery, is in YU鈥檚 rabbinic program. Joel was introduced at YU鈥檚 annual major dinner and Chanukah convocation on Sunday evening at the Waldorf-Astoria.

漏The Jewish Week - Gary Rosenblatt