The fourth annual William E. and Carol G. Simon Lecture on Religion in American Public Life, co-sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, will be given by Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik on Thursday, March 30, 2017, 4:30 pm in Lewis Library 120 on the campus of Princeton University. Rabbi Soloveichik’s lecture will be titled “Passover on July 4th: Franklin, Jefferson, and the Seal of the United States.”
Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is Director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and Rabbi at Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan. Rabbi Soloveichik has lectured throughout the United States, in Europe, and in Israel to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences on topics relating to Jewish theology, bioethics, wartime ethics, and Jewish-Christian relations. His essays on these subjects have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, First Things, Azure, Tradition, and the Torah U-Madda Journal. In 2016, he co-edited Torah and Western Thought: Intellectual Portraits of Orthodoxy and Modernity (Maggid, 2016) with Stuart W. Halpern and Shlomo Zuckier. He graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva College, received his semikha from Rabbi Issac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and was a member of its Beren Kollel Elyon. In 2010, he received his doctorate in religion from Princeton University.