Jeffrey Spitzer
Jeffrey Spitzer teaches Bible, Rabbinics, Jewish history and Jewish leadership, and is a house associate at the American Hebrew Academy, a Jewish boarding school in Greensboro, North Carolina. He previously was the chair of the Rabbinic Literature department at Gann Academy, a Jewish high school in Waltham, Massachusetts, and has taught in numerous adult Jewish education programs.
Articles by Jeffrey Spitzer
Welcoming the Convert into the Family of Israel
Israel's responsibilities toward converts begin with equal protection, but ultimately require the full integration of the convert into the family of Israel.
The Rabbinic Conversion Ceremony
The different layers of the rabbinic discussion of conversion reveal the beginnings of a transformation from a citizenship ritual to a theological initiation rite.
Preventing Dependency
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." How many fish do we buy, and how many nets?
Maimonides’ Eight Levels: A Contemporary Reading
Jeff Spitzer mines Maimonides' 8 levels of Tzedakah for guidance on contemporary issues in tzedakah.
Eating Matzah At the Seder
The bread of poverty has a rich history in Rabbinic literature.
An Aramean Destroyed My Father
Commentaries on the Haggadah contrast the evil of Laban with Pharaoh and see Laban as a symbol for political, sociological, and psychological evil.
The Birth of the Good Inclination
In rabbinic texts, the distinction between childhood and young adulthood is the birth of the yetzer hatov, the good inclination.
To What is God Similar?
Rabbinic parables explicitly compare God to a variety of human analogues, reflecting the rabbis' subtle, complex, and diverse images of God.