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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
4:00-6:00 pm
HUC-JIR; One West Fourth Street
(between Broadway and Mercer Street), New York
During his long career, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise received letters with only two words written on the envelope: “Rabbi USA.” But the United States Postal Service was never in doubt about the intended recipient: there was only one “Rabbi USA.” No other rabbi before or since Wise has dominated the American and the international scene with such passion and power. Both his admirers and opponents—there was no shortage of either group—acknowledged him as the premier leader of the American Jewish community and a major political figure.
Pillar of Fire goes behind the headlines and the once-closed archives of the White House and the State Department to reveal the complex and controversial personal relationship between Wise and President Franklin D. Roosevelt when millions of lives hung in the balance during the Holocaust. It also explores Wise's remarkable relationships with both President Woodrow Wilson and United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Finally, the book describes how Wise's extraordinary actions in the realm of social justice and human rights permanently influenced every clergyperson, seminary. and house of worship in America.
Pillar of Fire has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Jewish Book Award.
About the Author
Rabbi A. James Rudin attended Wesleyan University and graduated from George Washington University with academic distinction. He received his Master's degree and rabbinical ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and later did graduate studies in History at the University of Illinois. He holds honorary doctorates from Saint Leo University, Saint Martin's University, and HUC-JIR. He is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion and Judaica at Saint Leo University and teaches at the Florida Gulf Coast University Renaissance Academy.
Rabbi Rudin served congregations in Kansas City, Missouri and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and he was a United States Air Force Chaplain stationed in Japan and Korea. In 1968 he began his career as a member of the American Jewish Committee senior professional staff where he served as Director of the Interreligious Affairs Department. He is currently the AJC's Senior Interreligious Adviser and a member of the organization's Board of Governors.
A former chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, Rabbi Rudin participated in eleven meetings with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. He was a guest of honor at the 1994 Vatican Concert that commemorated the Shoah. In April 2008 he was chosen by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops to respond to Pope Benedict XVI's address to Jewish leaders in Washington, DC. Rabbi Rudin has also participated in historic meetings with the World Council of Churches in Geneva and with Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders in Greece.
He served on the Camp David Presidential Retreat Interfaith Chapel Committee and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. Rabbi Rudin was a founder of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, and the National Interreligious Task Force on Black-Jewish Relations. He was a founding member of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, an interdisciplinary body that focuses on bioethical issues.
Rabbi Rudin is the author or editor of seventeen books and since 1991 has written commentaries for Religion News Service. His latest books are Christians and Jews: Faith to Faith–Tragic Past, Promising Present, Fragile Future and Cushing, Spellman, O'Connor: How Three American Cardinals Transformed Catholic-Jewish Relations.
Rabbi Rudin's articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, America, The Washington Post, Reform Judaism, Boston Pilot, Christian Century, Christianity Today, Origins, and many other Christian and Jewish publications and international print media. He has lectured throughout the world and the rabbi has been a frequent guest on numerous radio and television programs.
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