Areas of Interest:
Hasidism and Eastern European Jewish thought, and history; Yiddish literature and culture
Education:
B.A. (McGill), M.A. and Ph.D. (Harvard)
Professor of Jewish Studies at Drew University since 1998. Prior to his appointment at Drew, Dr. Nadler was, for seven years, the Director of Research at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City, and Dean of YIVO’s Graduate Training Program, the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies. From 1991-94 Dr. Nadler was Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. In 1994-95 her served as Adjunct Professor at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. In 1998 he was the Ezra Sensibar Visiting Professor at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies in Chicago. In 2005, and again in 2011 and 2012, Dr. Nadler was Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies at McGill University in Montreal, where he had previously been a fully time faculty member from 1982-1984, and an adjunct professor from 1984-1990.
An ordained rabbi, Dr. Nadler served the Charles River Park Synagogue in Boston and Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Westmount (Montreal).
Dr. Nadler’s more than 150 articles, reviews and essays have appeared in numerous scholarly and popular journals and newspapers such as Commentary, The New Republic, The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Judaism, Tradition, Modern Judaism, The New York Times, Newsday, Forward, The Jewish Week, and The Baltimore Jewish Times.
Dr. Nadler is the author of: Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), The Hasidim in America (American Jewish Committee Monograph, 1995). Professor Nadler is currently writing, "A History of Heresy in Judaism" (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, 2015) and the forthcoming“Rabbis, Rebbes & Rebels: Polemics of Jewish Intellectual History in the Early Modern Period” which is planned for publication by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford, in 2016.
Publications
- Selected “Forward” Essays & Reviews
- “Jewish Ideas Daily” Feature Articles
- Recent Essays In “Tablet”
- The Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture (The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1997)
Selected Reviews of The Faith of the Mithnagdim
- The Hasidim in America (American Jewish Committee: 1995)
- and the forthcoming: The Heretic as Hero: Spinoza in the Modern Jewish Imagination
Links to Selected Articles, Monographs & Reviews
- Piety and Politics: The Satmar Rebbe (Judaism: Spring 1982)
- Rabbis Rebbes Rationalism & Romanticism (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Monograph, 1992)
- Meir ben Elijah’s Milhamot Ado-nai: A Late anti-Hasidic Polemic (Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy, vol. 1:1992)
- Last Exit to Brooklyn: On Lubavitch Messianism (The New Republic: May, 1992 )
- Jewish Religious Movements in 18th & 19th Century Eastern Europe in The Modern Jewish Experience (NYU Press, 1993)
- Soloveitchik’s Halakhic Man: Not a Mitnagged (Modern Judaism, Vol.13: 1993)
- The War on Modernity of the Munkaczer Rebbe (Modern Judaism, vol. 14: 1994)
- “King of Kings County”: The Lubavitcher Rebbe Dies…And Lives ! The New Republic: July 1994)
- Shaul Stampfer’s “The Lithuanian Yeshivot” (Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 48: no. 2, Autumn 1997)
- “The Scholarly Life of the Gaon of Vilna”: in Judaism in Practise: Princeton Readings in Relgion, ed. Lawrence Fine. Princeton University Press, 2001
- Moshe Idel’s “Messianic Mystics” (Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Vol 4: no. 1, 2001)
- On Immanuel Melzer’s “No Way Out” (Journal of Jewish Social Studies)
- On Jonathan Sarna’s “American Judaism” (The New Leader)
- On David Assaf’s The Regal Way (Slavic Review)
- “Piety and Power” and “Hasidic People” (Commentary)
- On Yeshayahu Leibowitz (Commentary)
- The Practice of Judaism in Eastern Europe The Encyclopedia of Judaism, Brill: Leiden, 2005
- Immanuel Etkes’ “The Besht” (AJS Review, vol. 22; April, 2003)
- Immanuel Etkes’s “Gaon of Vilna” (American Historical Review, Vol. 108, no. 5. December, 2003)
- Holy Kugel: The Sanctification of Ashkenzaic Ethnic Food in Hasidism (in “Food & Judaism” ed. by Leonard Greenspoon, Creighton University Press, 2005)
- The Rambam Revival(in “Moses Maimonides: Communal Impact, Historic Legacy” ed. Benny Kraut, Queens College Press, 2005)
- Maimonides’ Radical Rationalism (Forward, 2006)
- Romancing Spinoza (Commentary, December 2006)
- Izbica-Radzyn Hasidism: On ‘Hasidism on the Margins’ (Jewish Quarterly Review, 96:2: Spring, 2006
- The Value of Torah Study in Slonimer Hasidism (in “Yeshivot U-vatei Midrashot”, ed. Immanuel Etekes; Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar, 2006 (Hebrew)
- “Hasidic Judaism” (in Encyclopedia of American Jewish History, 2007)
- Review-essay of Katz, “Lithuanian Jewish Culture” Gal Ed, Fall, 2007
- “The Besht as Spinozist: Abraham Krochmal’s Satirical Introduction to Ha-Ketav veha-Mikhtav” in Rabbinic Culture & its Critics (Wayne State University Press, 2008)
- Maimonides’ Life and Mind in Joel Kraemer’s Mind(Moment, November/December, 2008)
- “The Gaon of Vilna and the Doctrine of Historical Decline” in D. Assaf, Ada Rapaport-Albert, eds. “Let the Old Make Way for the New: Festschrift for Immanuel Etkes”, (Jerusalem, Merkaz Shazar, 2009)
- The Mask of the Marranos (Commentary, October, 2009)
Selected Reviews and Essays from The Forward & other Magazines/Newspapers
- Rabbi Isadore Twersky: Remembering my Teacher
- Rabbi David Weiss HaLivni’s Perfect Faith in Imperfect Texts
- Dilemmas of a Fallible Rabbi: On Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg
- Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews
- Hirsh Abramowicz’s Profiles of a Lost World
- In Praise of Hayyim Nahman Bialik
- Enlightened anti-Semitism from Voltaire to Edward Said
- Who Owns Leo Strauss ?
- Springtime for Spinoza: The Heretic on the Yiddish Stage
- Purim and Jewish Violence: Review of Horowitz, ‘Reckless Rites’
- That Other Preacher from Galilee
- The Fraud of “Jewish Renewal”
- The Scandal of Haredi Racism
- A New Take on Old Ethics: The Revival of Mussar
- On Ruth Wisse’s Modern Jewish Canon
- On “Born to Kvetch”
- On The Diaries of Yankev Zipper
- “Law & Order: Special Galitsianer Unit” Review of MichaelStanislawski’s “A Murder in Lemberg”
- The Death of Dissent
- Spinoza: Founder of the ACLU ?
- “Springtime for Spinoza”: Heretic on the Yiddish Stage
- A Catholic Writer’s anti Papal Polemic: On Gary Will’s “Papal Sin”
- The Darker Side of Hasidism: On David Assaf’s Neehaz Basvakh
- Montreal’s Rabbis & their Chickens: On Robinson’s Rabbis and their Community
- Righteous Indignation: Understanding the Spinka Hasidic Scandal
- Baruch on Broadway: David Ives’ “New Jerusalem: The Interrogaton of Baruch Spinoza
- A Sad, Searching Soul: On Ben Zion Gold’s Memoirs of Jewish Life in Pre-war Poland
- Haredi Life, Too Purely Rendered: On David Volach’s “My Father My Lord” (Hofshat Kayitz)
- Absence & Presence: On Rabbi David Halivni’s “Breaking the Tablets”
- Fiery Pulpits from the Home Front (Review of Marc Saperstein)
- Zion, Shall You Not Beseach (On Recent Works about Yehudah Halevi)
- “From Zion, Not From Brooklyn” op. ed. New York Times April 1994
- L’Affaire Schwartz: The New Republic ‘Montreal Diarist’
- Hi-Jacking Religion: Montreal Gazette op. ed. 2005
- Black Hat Like Me: In Praise of Outremont’s Hasidism in Montreal Gazette, Auguest 2007