Allan Nadler

Allan L. Nadler (born May 8, 1954) is Wallerstein Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and Former Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

Biography

Nadler was born in Montreal, Quebec, and was educated at McGill and Harvard University, where he received his doctorate in 1988.

He was initially ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Baron (1911–2011) of Yeshiva Merkaz ha-Talmud in Montreal, and received a second ordination from the late rabbinical scholar, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Tennenbaum, Chief Justice, or Dayan of the Orthodox Rabbinical Court of Justice (which authorizes the "KVH" Kosher Supervision) in Boston. He studied Talmud and Rabbinical Codes for in the Rabbinical Program at Jews' College in London, England, under the tutelage of Rabbi Dr. Nachum Rabinovitch, and also studied privately for five years with Montreal's Chief Rabbi Pinchas Hirschsprung.

Nadler was the Rabbi of The Charles River Park Synagogues in Boston, at the time an ostensibly Orthodox congregation, with a mixed seating section, and was a member of the Boston Vaad HaRabonim, serving as a Dayan, or judge, on its Rabbinical Court from 1980 to 1982.

During the period 1984–1992, Nadler became Rabbi of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, Quebec. Nadler was the first Orthodox-ordained rabbi at this formerly Conservative congregation, which left the Conservative Movement during his tenure. During that time he was adjunct professor of Jewish Studies at McGill University. After resigning from the Shaar Hashomayim, he served as Director of Research of the YIVO Institute in New York City (1992–1999), which holds the world's largest Yiddish and Holocaust Archives and Library.