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Faculty

Full-Time Faculty


Aaron Hahn Tapper

Program Director
(415) 422-2378

Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, the Mae and Benjamin Swig Professor in Jewish Studies and the founding Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, has been at USF since 2007. An educator for more than two decades, his primary academic interest is the intersection between identity formation, social justice, and marginalized groups. Aaron completed his PhD in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied the History of Religions,...

Education:

PhD, Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, MTS, Harvard Divinity School, BA, Johns Hopkins University

Paula Birnbaum

Professor
(415) 422-5167

Paula Birnbaum is the Academic Director of the Museum Studies Master of Arts Program and Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at USF. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary art and holds a doctorate in Art History from Bryn Mawr College. Professor Birnbaum is a former Fulbright Scholar and fellow at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University. Birnbaum’s research focuses on modern and contemporary art in relationship to gender and sexuality, as well as...

Education:

PhD, History of Art, Bryn Mawr College, MA, History of Art, Bryn Mawr College, BA, History of Art and French Literature, Bowdoin College

Oren Kroll-Zeldin

Assistant Professor
(415) 422-6601

Oren Kroll-Zeldin holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and Social Change from the California Institute of Integral Studies where he also received an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation. He is the Assistant Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice where he teaches courses on Jewish culture, identity and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also serves as the associate director of Hebrew San Francisco: Ulpan, a three-week intensive Hebrew language...

Education:

PhD, Cultural Anthropology and Social Change, The California Institute of Integral Studies, MA, Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation, The California Institute of Integral Studies

Elliot Neaman

Professor
(415) 422-6411

Elliot Neaman received a BA in sociology from the University of British Columbia in 1979, an MA in history and philosophy from the Freie Universität in Berlin in 1985, and his PhD in history from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992. His areas of specialization are Modern Germany, The Holocaust, Late Modern Intellectual History, post 1945 Global History, European Diplomatic & Economic History, and theory and methodology of the historical sciences. His first book on the German...

Education:

PhD, History, University of California at Berkeley, MA, History and Philosophy, Freie Universität in Berlin, BA, Sociology, University of British Columbia

Stephen Zunes

Professor
(415) 422-6981

Stephen Zunes has been at USF since 1995, teaching courses on the politics of the Middle East and other regions, nonviolence, conflict resolution, U.S. foreign policy, and globalization. He served as the founder and first director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program. A prominent specialist on U.S. Middle East policy, Professor Zunes has presented hundreds of public lectures and conference papers in both the United States and over a dozen foreign countries. He has traveled frequently to the...

Education:

PhD, Cornell University, MA, Temple University, BA, Oberlin College

Expertise:

Middle Eastern & North African Politics, Peace Studies, U.S. Foreign Policy, Social Movements

Part-Time Faculty


Camille Angel

Adjunct Professor

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

Adjunct Professor
(415) 422-6601

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.

Education:

PhD, Comparative Literature, UCLA, BA, Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

Lee Bycel

Adjunct Professor
(415) 422-6601

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...

Education:

BA from University of California at Berkeley, PhD from Claremont School of Theology

Expertise:

Social justice issues

Reginold Daniels

Adjunct Professor

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...

Education:

MBA, University of San Fracisco

Dalit Gvirtsman

Adjunct Professor
(415) 422-6601

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....

Education:

Tel Aviv University, BA in General and Interdisciplinary Studies, 1993

Expertise:

Hebrew Instruction, Hebrew Cooking Classes, Develop Hebrew Curriculum, Content Writing, Group Facilitating

Alexis Herr

Adjunct Professor
(415) 422-6601

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...

Education:

PhD, Holocaust History from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University

Susanne Hoelscher

Adjunct Professor
(415) 422-2802

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...

Education:

PhD, German Studies, University of California, Davis, MA, German Studies, San Francisco State University

Natalie Latteri

Adjunct Professor

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...

Education:

PhD, University of New Mexico, MA, Purdue University, BA, University of California, Davis

Expertise:

Interfaith relations in medieval Europe Apocalypticism and Messianism Medieval polemic

Contact Info

Office of Swig Program in Jewish Studies & Social Justice

Mon-Fri, 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Kalmanovitz Hall, Room 152 (415) 422-6601 (415) 422-5356