Dr. Lamm - distinguished rabbi, philosopher, teacher, and author - was elected President of Yeshiva University in August, 1976, succeeding Dr. Samuel Belkin and Dr. Bernard Revel. He is the University’s third president and the first native-born American to head the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive institution of higher learning.
Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1927, Dr. Lamm received his elementary and high school education at Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Vodaath. In 1945, he entered Yeshiva College where he continued his Jewish learning and undertook a liberal arts program with a major in chemistry. He graduated summa cum laude in 1949 and was class valedictorian.
Upon graduation, Dr. Lamm pursued advanced scientific studies at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn while continuing his Judaic studies and rabbinic scholarship at Yeshiva. He was ordained as a rabbi by YU’s affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in 1951, and earned a Ph.D. in Jewish philosophy from the University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School in 1966.
During the 17 years preceding his election as president, Dr. Lamm served on the Yeshiva University faculty, culminating in his appointment as the Erna and Jakob Michael Professor of Jewish Philosophy in 1966. He has also been spiritual leader of the Jewish Center in Manhattan, rabbi of Congregation Kodimoh in Springfield, MA, and assistant rabbi at New York City’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.
Dr. Lamm has gained wide recognition for his writings and discourses on interpretation of Jewish philosophy and law, especially in relation to problems involving science, technology, and philosophy in the modern world. He has authored ten books, the most recent, The Religious Thought of Hasidism: Text and Commentary, won the coveted 1999 Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought. Rabbi Lamm has edited or co-edited over twenty volumes, including The Library of Jewish Law and Ethics. He was the founder and first editor of Tradition and associate editor of Hadarom, a journal of Jewish law, and founder of the Torah U-Madda Journal.
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