David Novak

Emeriti Faculty

PhD

Professor, J. Richard & Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies; Department for the Study of Religion

416-946-3229

david.novak@utoronto.ca

Jackman Humanities Building, Room 330
University of Toronto, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 2M8, Canada
Campus: St. George

David Novak was born in Chicago, Illinois on 19 August 1941. He received his AB from the University of Chicago in 1961, and from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America he received his MHL (Master of Hebrew Literature) in 1964 and his rabbinical diploma in1966. He received his PhD in philosophy from Georgetown University in 1971. 

Since 1997 Dr. Novak holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of Religion and Philosophy in the University of Toronto, where he is a Fellow of St. Michael’s College and a member of University College. During 1989-96 he was the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia. He has also been on the faculties of Oklahoma City University, Old Dominion University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Baruch College of the City University of New York. During 1966-69 he was the Jewish Chaplain to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C; and during 1966-89 he served as the rabbi of several U.S. congregations. He has been a consultant to the governments of Canada, the United States, Israel, and Poland, and to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

David Novak is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), and a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. In 1983 he was a founder of the Union for Traditional Judaism, where he is now President and Coordinator of the Panel of Inquiry on Jewish Law. He is a founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, the publisher of the monthly journal First Things. He is a Consulting Scholar and a member of the Board of Advisors of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions of Princeton University. In 1992-93 he was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. In 1995 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion and Business Ethics at Drew University. In February 1996 he delivered the Lancaster/Yarnton Lectures in Judaism and Other Religions in Oxford University and then in Lancaster University. In 2004 he was the Charles E. Test, M.D. Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Princeton University, and in 2006 he was Visiting Professor of Religion at Princeton. In 2011 he was a Project Scholar in the Religious Freedom Project of the Berkley Center of Georgetown University. In 2017 he delivered the Gifford Lectures in the University of Aberdeen.

David Novak is to date the author of nineteen books. His book Covenantal Rights (Princeton University Press) won the American Academy of Religion Award for “best book in constructive religious thought in 2000.” He has edited four books and authored over three hundred articles and reviews in numerous scholarly and intellectual journals. He is one of the four co-authors of Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, first published in The New York Times in September 2000, and now translated into over eight languages. He is to date the subject of six books. 

David Novak married Melva Ziman in 1963. They have two married children and four living grandchildren.

Education

• PhD, Georgetown University
• MHL, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
• Rabbinical diploma, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
• AB, University of Chicago

Research Interests

• Jewish law, ethics, and political theory
• Ethics (including biomedical ethics)
• Political theory (with special emphasis on natural law theory)
• Jewish-Christian relations

Publications

• Law and Theology in Judaism (Volumes I and II). New York: Ktav Publishing House. 1974. (Vol. 1 foreword by Louis Finkelstein)
• Suicide and Morality: The theories of Plato, Aquinas, and Kant and their relevance for suicidology. Scholars Studies Press. 1975. ISBN 9780685690796.
• The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: A historical and constructive study of the Noahide Laws. New York: E. Mellen Press. 1983.
• Halakhah in a Theological Dimension. Scholars Press. 1985. ISBN 9780891307570..
• Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish justification. Oxford University Press. 1989. ISBN 0-19-507273-1.
• The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented. Scholars Press. 1992. ISBN 1-55540-802-8.
• Jewish Social Ethics. Oxford University Press. 1992. ISBN 0-19-506924-2.
• The Election of Israel: The idea of the Chosen People. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1995. ISBN 0-521-41690-6.
• Leo Strauss and Judaism: Jerusalem and Athens critically revisited. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1996. ISBN 0-8476-8146-7.
• Natural Law in Judaism. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. ISBN 0-521-63170-X.
• Covenantal Rights: A study in Jewish political theory. Princeton University Press. 2000. ISBN 1-4008-0576-7.
• Jewish-Christian Relations in a Secular Age. The Swig Judaic Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. 1998.
• Maimonides on Judaism and Other Religions. Hebrew Union College Press. 1997.
• After Twenty-Five Years: Jewish-Christian relations since the Second Vatican Council's Nostra aetate, "On the relation of the church to non-Christian religions" : Symposium papers. St. Michael's College. 1990. (with John Pawlikowski and Paul Matthews Van Buren)
• Novak, David (December 2003). "A Jewish Argument for Socialized Medicine". Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. 13 (4): 313–328. doi:10.1353/ken.2004.0009. PMID 15049296. S2CID 25217431.
• Homosexuality: A Case Study in Jewish Ethics (with Elliot N. Dorff and Aaron L. Mackler). Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 28 (2008): 225–35.
• Shorter articles in Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility include:
  • Concerning Physician Assisted Suicide, Vol.21/no.420 1991
  • Jew, Yes; Gentile, Yes; Quasi-Jew, No, Vol.18/no.346 1988
  • Yes to Halakhah Means No to Women Rabbis, Vol.9/no.166 1979
  • Full list
• The Jewish Social Contract: An essay in political theology. Princeton University Press. 2005. ISBN 0-691-12210-5. david novak.
• Talking With Christians: Musings of a Jewish theologian. Wm. B. Eerdsman Publishing Co. 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2842-6.
• The Sanctity of Human Life. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 2007. ISBN 978-1-58901-176-2.
• Tradition in the Public Square: A David Novak Reader. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2008. ISBN 978-0-8028-3072-2.
• In Defense of Religious Liberty. ISI Books. 2009. ISBN 978-1-933859-75-0.