Hillel Levine

Hillel Levine (b. 1946) is the author of The Economic Origins of Antisemitism: Poland and its Jews in the early modern period (Yale U Press 1991) and of In Search of Sugihara: the elusive Japanese diplomat who risked his life to rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust (New York: Free Press, 1996), co-author of The Death of an American Jewish community: a tragedy of good intentions (New York: Free Press, 1992), and co-editor (with Robert S. Cohen) of Maimonides and the sciences (2000).

He is the president of the International Center for Conciliation, a non-profit group The International Center for Conciliation, which is dedicated to fostering dignity and cooperation in conflict ridden communities through reconciliation and community preparedness. Hillel Levine received his rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in Sociology and Jewish History from Harvard University. From 1973 to 1980 he taught sociology and Jewish history at Yale University, where he founded the program in Judaic Studies. From 1980 to 1982 he was Deputy Director for Museum Planning of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington. Since 1982, he has been Professor of Religion at Boston University. He has held visiting professorships in Japan, China, Poland, the Soviet Union, Brazil, and Israel.

At Boston University, Prof. Levine served as the first director of the Center for Judaic Studies and taught courses in American Judaism, Antisemitism, the History of Judaism, the Holocaust, and most recently Religion and Film.

Prof. Levine describes himself as a student of Erik Erikson, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Elie Wiesel, Hannah Arendt, and Peter Berger who applies his theoretical knowledge and experience in the social sciences, from psychoanalytic theory to organizational development and business administration, to a broad range of domestic and international strategic planning processes and public programs. He directed the first planning process resulting in the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, mediating the concerns of Holocaust survivors and representatives of other genocides, historians, educators, and communal leaders, architects, artists, elected officials, and government regulators. He is a board member of many community based not-for-profit organizations, and often acts as a consultant. He has designed and participated in conflict resolution workshops, including religious, ethnic, and socio-economic conflict, and consulted to foundations, government agencies, and professional organizations on these topics. Following the positive response to his book Death of an American Jewish Community, he organized the Gentrification Project in Boston to foster dialogue and the clarification and balancing of conflicting interests among the stakeholders of neighborhood change. As an ordained rabbi, he has been active in interfaith activities and participated in the UN Millennial meeting on faith and development. He has consulted on these issues in Norway, Israel, Japan, Holland, Italy, Morocco, India, South Korea, and Germany. After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, he organized one of the only relief missions allowed entry by the Japanese government that included psychiatrists and mental health workers to deal with the trauma of the victims, particularly the burnout of the Kobe mental health workers who themselves were victims.