David Novak

David Novak is a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law. He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto since 1997. During 1989-96 he was the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia. He has also been on the faculties of Oklahoma City University, Old Dominion University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Baruch College of the City University of New York. During 1966-69 he was the Jewish Chaplain to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C; and during 1966-89 he served as the rabbi of several U.S. congregations. He has been a consultant to the governments of Canada, the United States, Israel, and Poland, and to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

David Novak is a founder, vice-president, and coordinator of the Jewish Law Panel of the Union for Traditional Judaism, and a founder and faculty member of the Institute of Traditional Judaism in Teaneck, New Jersey. He serves as secretary-treasurer of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York City and is on the editorial board of its journal First Things. He is a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, and a member of the Board of Consulting Scholars of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

In addition, David Novak is to date the author of nineteen books. His book Covenantal Rights (Princeton University Press) won the American Academy of Religion Award for “best book in constructive religious thought in 2000.” He has edited four books and authored over three hundred articles and reviews in numerous scholarly and intellectual journals. He is one of the four co-authors of Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, first published in The New York Times in September 2000, and now translated into over eight languages. He is to date the subject of six books.

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