Jonathan Rosenbaum is President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at Gratz College. Since 2009, he has also been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.  A prominent researcher, administrator, rabbi, and consultant, Dr. Rosenbaum has received academic tenure at three institutions, held an endowed professorship, and pioneered online and on-campus academic programs. He began his career at the University of Nebraska at Omaha where he taught for ten years. As a specialist in the ancient Near East and in Biblical studies, he has taught and published in those fields as well as in rabbinics, American Jewish history, and Jewish education. Additionally, he has served as a deputy director of a major archeological expedition in Israel.

Rosenbaum graduated from the University of Michigan (Phi Beta Kappa; summa cum laude) and earned a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. He studied at Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox rabbinical institutions, earned rabbinical ordination, and occupies the rare position of having served congregations and been recognized as a rabbi in all three of those streams of Judaism. 

Rosenbaum’s research in Biblical studies rests on critical, data-driven analysis. He has utilized archeology, the Biblical text, and extra-Biblical sources including inscriptions, histories, chronicles, and coins to investigate topics ranging from the history of ancient Israel and Judah to the central role of King Agrippa I (the Great; 11 BCE-44 CE) under the Romans. For six years (2014-2020), Rosenbaum served as the chair of the section on Archeology and Biblical Studies of ASOR, the international umbrella organization of archeologists and historians of the Near East and wider Mediterranean.

Among his publications as a scholar of American Judaism, Rosenbaum has authored a history of the Jews of Hartford, Connecticut, an oral history of Omaha’s Jews, and articles on the American rabbinate including several on Rabbi Tsvi Hirsch Grodzinsky of Omaha. His most recent work is “From Summit to Precipice,” an analysis of the historical trends and contemporary challenges of Conservative Judaism. That article appeared in the winter, 2022-2023 issue of Masorti, the recently revived and renamed continuation of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s academic journal.