Faculty

Camille Shira Angel, an adjunct professor in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, is also an ordained rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and the author of articles including "Crafting a Liturgical Mirror," in the wonderful new anthology The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality, and "Ruach Acheret-Ruach Hakodesh: Different Spirit-Sacred Spirit" in Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. She was the spiritual leader...

Noa Bar-Gabai earned her PhD in comparative literature from UCLA. Her dissertation and current research examines Hebrew narratives written by Mizrahi (Arab-Jewish) authors with regard to issues of secularism, postcolonialism, and Jewish nationalism.

Jeremy P. Brown earned his PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University. He teaches at USF in the department of Theology and Religious Studies, and in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, where he also serves as Director of the USF Lecture Series in the History of Jewish-Christian Relations. Brown is a 2016-17 Research Fellow of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and a 2017-2018 Center Scholar at Seattle University’s Center for Religious Wisdom and World...

Lee is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in Napa and a Senior Moderator at the Aspen Institute. He has devoted his life to a variety of social justice issues as a teacher, humanitarian and community leader. For fifteen years he was Dean of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, where he was also Assistant Professor of Leadership and Applied Theology and served as the Smither Visiting Professor of World Religions at the Claremont School of Theology. Lee...

Reggie Daniels was born in San Francisco. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of San Francisco in 2012 and his Masters at USF School of Management in business in 2014. He will complete his Doctorate of Education in 2018. In 2012 Daniels received a Merit Scholarship from the University of San Francisco, School of Management. He has been honored with the Black History Month Local Heroes Award and highlighted on KQED; in July 2012, he received the In the Trenches “Change Agent...

Dalit Gvirtsman was born and raised in Israel, where she studied at Tel Aviv University and received her BA in general and interdisciplinary studies in the faculty of humanities. She has been an educator and a Hebrew language instructor in the Bay Area for the past 19 years, and developed curriculum for advanced Hebrew learners at Jewish Day Schools grades K-8, as well as for high school students and adult learners.  Dalit has been teaching in the Hebrew San Francisco Ulpan at USF since 2016....

Shaina Hammerman is the author of Silver Screen, Hasidic Jews: The Story of an Image (Indiana University Press, 2018). In addition to teaching Jewish cultural studies for the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at USF, Shaina teaches humanities courses to college students at San Quentin State Prison as part of the Prison University Project. She holds a PhD in Jewish History and Culture from the Graduate Theological Union where she also received an MA in Jewish Studies.

Dr. Herr has dedicated her life to combating genocide and atrocity, and this passion has motivated her educational and professional pursuits and translates into a strong desire to prevent human rights violations. Ms. Herr received a doctorate in Holocaust History from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. In addition to holding academic positions at Keene State College, Northeastern University, and San Francisco State University, she has also worked for...

Susanne Hoelscher received her PhD in German Studies from the University of California, Davis, with an emphasis in post-wall Berlin literature and film. She earned an MA in German Studies from San Francisco State University, and completed the Erste Staatsexamen at the Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster, Germany, majoring in Education with a focus on German Studies and History. Susanne Hoelscher's research is focused on late 19th to 21st century German literature and culture and includes...

Natalie E. Latteri earned her PhD in History from the University of New Mexico. She teaches Jewish-Christian Relations at USF in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. Latteri is a Fellow of the Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Foundation (2016-17) and the American Academy for Jewish Research (2015), among others. Her research interests include interfaith (Jewish-Christian) relations, messianism and apocalypticism, Christian apocrypha, polemic, haunting and possession, and...

Andrew Ramer, an adjunct professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, is the author of numerous books and articles. His primary interests are in multi-faith dialogue, the sacredness of the body, queer inclusion, and our connection to the Earth. Much of his work focuses on Jewish texts, informed by his interest in the Sufi tradition in Islam and the writings of Farid ad-Din Attar, Hafiz, and Rumi; a decades-long Buddhist meditation practice; and his active participation in a...

Esti Skloot grew up in Israel where she studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and received her teacher's credentials from the Hebrew Teachers' Seminary. She received her BA in music from Sonoma State University, and her MA in creative writing at the University of San Francisco. In 1998, Professor Skloot created an on-campus intensive three-week, multi-level Hebrew-immersion summer program — founded under the name Ulpan San Francisco; now called Hebrew San Francisco: Ulpan — and served...