Rabbi Jonah Chanan Steinberg, PhD.received his doctorate in 2003 from Columbia University, where he assisted the eminent talmudist David Weiss Halivni in producing three books. Jonah's dissertation, Angelic Israel: Self-Identification with Angels in Classical Midrash and its Antecedents explores how the early rabbis absorbed a legacy of apocalypticism and heavenly speculation, and carried forward themes of transcendent identity, while forging a path for life in this present world. Jonah began teaching in the Department of Talmud and Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1997, while still a graduate student. He also taught at the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (Formerly University of Judaism), where he was the Finkelstein Fellow in 1999-2000, and at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where he was Director of the Program in Classical Rabbinic Civilization for three years. Upon completion of his doctorate, Jonah joined the Hebrew College faculty to help build a new trans-denominational Rabbinical School. Jonah has received the New Scholar Award from the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. In May of 2008, Jonah received rabbinic ordination from his senior colleagues and mentors at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College.
