Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, the Mae and Benjamin Swig Professor in Jewish Studies and the founding Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, has been at USF since 2007. An educator for more than two decades, his primary academic interest is the intersection between identity formation, social justice, and marginalized groups.
Aaron completed his PhD in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied the History of Religions, the Sociology of Religions, Nonviolence and Religions, Politics and Religions, and Modern Islamic Movements. His Dissertation focused on the relationship between power, the sociopolitical context of Israel and Palestine, and Jewish and Islamic religious law (halachah and shari'a, respectively). He also received an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, where he focused on World Religions, and a BA from Johns Hopkins University, where he majored in Psychology.
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Oren Kroll-Zeldin holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and Social Change from the California Institute of Integral Studies where he also received an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation. He is the Assistant Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice where he teaches courses on Jewish culture, identity and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also serves as the associate director of Hebrew San Francisco: Ulpan, a three-week intensive Hebrew language program offered each summer at USF. Additionally, he is the co-founder and lead curator of Mapping Jewish San Francisco, a new digital humanities project of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice that takes a collaborative approach to examining the complex history and unique religious, cultural, and political identity of the Jewish San Francisco Bay Area. In 2017, he received the USF Distinguished Adjunct Teaching Award.
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Camille Shira Angel, an adjunct professor in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, is also an ordained rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and the author of articles including "Crafting a Liturgical Mirror," in the wonderful new anthology The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality, and "Ruach Acheret-Ruach Hakodesh: Different Spirit-Sacred Spirit" in Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. She is the Rabbi-in-Residence at the University of San Francisco, a joint appointment in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice and the University Ministry.
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ADVISORY BOARD
- Dr. Paula Birnbaum – Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, Academic Director of the Museum Studies Master of Arts Program, USF
- Dr. Rachel Deblinger – Director of the Documenting Global Voices Program, UCLA
- Dr. Marc Dollinger – Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility, San Francisco State University
- Dr. Ava F. Kahn – Historian, Author of Transnational Traditions and Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush
- Rabbi Sydney Mintz – Senior clergy, Congregation Emanu-El
- Dr. Todd Presner – Project Founder, Mapping Jewish Los Angeles, UCLA
- Rabbi Lawrence Raphael, z"l – Former emeritus clergy, Congregation Sherith Israel