Writer Oppenheimer to give Lecture

Mark Oppenheimer

Mark Oppenheimer, PhD – writer, religion scholar,  former “Beliefs” columnist for the New York Times and host of the podcast Unorthodox, will present a talk titled “Judaism in the Year 2118: Where will we be in 100 years?”  as part of the Annual Rabbi Max B. Wall Lecture Series on Thursday, March 8 at 4:30 p.m. in the Roy Event Room of Dion Family Student Center on the campus of Saint Michael’s College.

The program will include commentary from Rabbi Amy Small of Burlington’s Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. The late Rabbi Max Wall, for whom this longstanding lecture series is named, was the spiritual leader at Ohavi Zedek for many decades, taking courageous initiative in the early 1960s to forge a lasting relationship with Saint Michael’s College, including teaching courses, initiating a Judaica collection in the library and establishing this lecture series.

Oppenheimer has a doctorate in Religion from Yale and has taught at Yale, Stanford, Wesleyan (Robert Garis Visting Professor of Non-fiction), Boston College (Corcoran Professor in Christian-Jewish Learning), The Hartford Seminary, NYU and other colleges in the U.S.  From 2010 to 2016, he wrote for the religion section of the New York Times (“Beliefs”) and is now a contributing opinion writer for The Los Angeles Times. Beyond the NYT and the LAT, he has written articles for a wide range of popular journals including, for example, the Atlantic, the Nation, The New Republic, Christian Century, Tablet, Slate, GQ, Time, Wall Street Journal, The Forward, The Believer, Harpers, Yale Review, and the New Yorker. He also hosts a podcast, Unorthodox, and has been on a number of TV shows including Morning Joe and the CBS Sunday Morning show.

Kessel said he first heard Oppenheimer speaking on NPR about a topic related to Judaism and was favorably impressed, leading to the speaking invitation. Information: Herbert Kessel at hkessel@smcvt.edu