Zev Garber
{{short description|American academic (born 1941)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Zev Garber
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| birth_date =March 1, 1941
| birth_place = Bronx, NY
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| nationality = American
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| known_for = Professor Emeritus and Chair of Jewish Studies at Los Angeles Valley College & editor of Shofar
| education = Bar-Ilan University
Hunter College
University of Southern California
| employer = Los Angeles Valley College
| occupation = Academic
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| spouse = Susan
| children = Asher and Dorit
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Zev Garber is an American academic. He is Professor Emeritus and Chair of Jewish Studies at Los Angeles Valley College, and the editor of Shofar, a peer-reviewed academic journal of Jewish Studies{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}. He is the former president of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew. He was the subject of a Festschrift in 2009.
Early life and education
Garber was born into a Jewish family and attended Bar-Ilan University in Israel,{{cite web|title=Zev Garber|url=https://www.routledge.com/authors/i7864-zev-garber|website=Routledge|access-date=June 23, 2016}} and he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in Hebrew from Hunter College.{{cite news|title=Registration Opens For Two Hebrew Courses|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/32660390/?terms=%22zev%2Bgarber%22|access-date=June 3, 2016|work=The Van Nuys News|date=August 30, 1970|page=3|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration }} He studied Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Ugaritic at UCLA graduate school. He earned a master of arts degree and completed his course work for PhD in Religion at the University of Southern California.{{cite news|last1=Dart|first1=John|title=Hebrew Sage Shepherds Jewish Studies|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-09-24-me-49533-story.html|access-date=June 2, 2016|work=The Los Angeles Times|date=September 24, 1995}}
Career
Garber started his career as a Hebrew teacher at the Los Angeles Hebrew High School.
Garber joined the faculty at Los Angeles Valley College in 1970.{{cite web|title=Zev Garber|url=http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/contributors/zev-garber|website=Purdue University Press|access-date=May 30, 2016}} Within a year, he established a Jewish Studies major. As of 2016, he is Professor Emeritus and Chair of Jewish Studies.{{cite journal|last1=Greenspoon|first1=Leonard|title=Not in an Ivory Tower: Zev Garber and Biblical Studies|journal=Hebrew Studies|date=2010|volume=51|pages=369–373|doi=10.1353/hbr.2010.a400595 |jstor=27913981|s2cid=142813629 }}{{cite journal|last1=Gereboff|first1=Joel|title=A Symposium on the Work of Zev Garber: Reviews of Maven in Blue Jeans|journal=Hebrew Studies|date=2010|volume=51|page=351|doi=10.1353/hbr.2010.a400592 |s2cid=170368891 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/400592|access-date=May 30, 2016|via=Project MUSE|url-access=registration }}{{cite journal|last1=Gereboff|first1=Joel|title=Zev Garber's Usage of Biblical and Rabbinic Sources|journal=Hebrew Studies|date=2010|volume=51|pages=353–358|doi=10.1353/hbr.2010.a400591 |jstor=27913978|s2cid=170410954 }} He was the Visiting Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in 2005. He taught Jewish studies at the University of California at Riverside and at the American Jewish University.
Garber has been the co-editor and later editor of Shofar since 1994.{{cite journal|last1=Sabbath|first1=Roberta|title=Historiosophy and Zev Garber, A Neologism: His Teaching Methodology, Literary Investigations, and Engagement with Zionism|journal=Hebrew Studies|date=2010|volume=51|pages=359–362|doi=10.1353/hbr.2010.a400593 |jstor=27913979|s2cid=170997346 }} He served as the President of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew, where he still serves as an officer.{{cite web|title=Officers|url=http://www.naphhebrew.org/officers|website=National Association of Professors of Hebrew|access-date=June 1, 2016}} He has been the editor of Iggeret, the newsletter of the NAPH, since 1984.{{cite web|title=Zev Garber|url=https://lavc.edu/Philosophy/Zev_Garber.html|website=Los Angeles Valley College|access-date=July 3, 2016}}
Garber established the first Jewish Studies program in a public school of higher learning in the State of California at Los Angeles Valley College (1971). He is recognized as a pioneer of Jewish Studies at two-year public colleges. His scholarship embraces Jewish Studies pedagogy, Shoah theology, Jewish Jesus, and interfaith dialogue. His (and Bruce Zuckerman) advocacy of Shoah not Holocaust as the term of record for the murder of European Jewry during WW II, presented at the Oxford Conference ("Remembering for the Future," 10–13 July 1988) was among the first to advocate careful terminology to describe the Jewish genocide.{{cite news|last1=Dart|first1=John|title=Scholars Seek Substitute for the Word 'Holocaust'|access-date=July 3, 2016|work=The Los Angeles Times|date=April 9, 1994|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-09-me-44075-story.html}}
Garber, published author and presenter of hundreds of academic articles and reviews, was the subject of a Festschrift edited by Steven L. Jacobs entitled Maven in Blue Jeans: A Festschrift in Honor of Zev Garber in 2009.{{cite book|title=Maven in blue jeans : a festschrift in honor of Zev Garber|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/261176645|via=WorldCat|oclc = 261176645|access-date=June 3, 2016}}
Publications
- {{cite book|last=Garber|first=Zev|title=Methodology in the Academic Teaching of Judaism|date=1986|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780819157249|oclc=14272763}}
- {{cite book|last1=Berger|first1=Alan L.|last2=Garber|first2=Zev|last3=Libowitz|first3=Richard|title=Methodology in the Academic Teaching of the Holocaust|date=1988|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780819169617|oclc=17649643}}
- {{cite book|last1=Garber|first1=Zev|title=Teaching Hebrew Language and Literature at the College Level|date=1991}}
- {{cite book|last1=Garber|first1=Zev|title=Shoah: The Paradigmatic Genocide: Essays in Exegesis and Eisegesis|date=1994|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780819196583|oclc=30734284}}
- {{cite book|editor1-last=Berenbaum |editor1-first=Michael|editor2-last=Rubenstein |editor2-first=Betty Rogers|others=Consulting editors: Rubenstein Feibel, Hannah; Garber, Susan; Garber, Zev|title=What Kind of God? Essays in Honor of Richard L. Rubenstein|date=1995|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780761800361|oclc=32780110}}
- {{cite book|last1=Cargas|first1=Harry J.|last2=Garber|first2=Zev|last3=Libowitz|first3=Richard|title=Peace, In Deed: Essays in Honor of Harry James Cargas|date=1998|publisher=Scholars Press|location=Atlanta, Georgia|isbn=9780788504976|oclc=39763342}}
- {{cite book|last1=Garber|first1=Zev|title=Academic Approaches to Teaching Jewish Studies|date=2000|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780761815525|oclc=42475906}}
- {{cite book|last1=Jacobs|first1=Steven|last2=Knight|first2=Henry|editor1-last=Moore |editor1-first=James |last3=Garber|first3=Zev|title=Post-Shoah Dialogues: Re-Thinking our Texts Together|date=2004|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780761828372|oclc=55142963}}
- {{cite book|last1=Garber|first1=Zev|last2=Zuckerman|first2=Bruce|title=Double Takes: Thinking and Rethinking Issues of Modern Judaism in Ancient Contexts|date=2004|publisher=University Press of America|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=9780761828945|oclc=56680883}}
- {{cite book|editor1-last=Garber|editor1-first=Zev|title=Mel Gibson's Passion: The Film, the Controversy, and Its Implications|date=2006|publisher=Purdue University Press|location=West Lafayette, Indiana|isbn=9781557534057|oclc=61821761}}
- {{cite book|last1=Ansell|first1=Lisa|last2=Garber|first2=Zev|last3=Schoenberg|first3=Jeremy|last4=Zuckerman|first4=Bruce|title=The Impact of the Holocaust in America|date=2008|publisher=Purdue University Press|location=West Lafayette, Indiana|isbn=9781557535344|oclc=286532454}}
- {{cite book|last1=Garber|first1=Zev|title=The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation|date=2011|publisher=Purdue University Press|location=West Lafayette, Indiana|isbn=9781557535795|oclc=670480801}}
- {{cite book|last1=Garber|first1=Zev|title=Teaching the Historical Jesus: Issues and Exegesis|date=2015|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|isbn=9781138794610|oclc=886382164}}
- Garber, Zev, Hakak, Lev, Katz, Shmuel, eds., (2017). The Maskil in Our Time:Studies in Honor of Moshe Pelli.Israel: Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing House. {{ISBN|978-965-020-837-0}}. Hebrew and English.
- Garber, Zev and Hanson, Kenneth, Judaism and Jesus (2020), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK {{ISBN|978-1-5275-4129-0}}
- Garber, Zev and Hanson, Kenneth, "The Annotated Passover Haggadah" (2021), GCRR Press, Denver, CO ({{ISBN|978-1-7362739-2-0}})
- Garber, Zev and Hanson, Kenneth,"Teaching the Shoah:Mandate and Momentum" (2023), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyre, UK ({{ISBN|1-5275-9120-4}})
- Garber, Zev and Hanson, Kenneth,"Jewish Studies and the Gospel of St John," (2025), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyre, UK ({{ISBN|978-1-0364-4148-7}})
References
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Category:Bar-Ilan University alumni
Category:Hunter College alumni
Category:University of Southern California alumni