HAROLD S. WHITE ’54
HAROLD S. WHITE, who retired as Senior Jewish Chaplain at Georgetown University, the first rabbi to hold a full-time campus ministry position at a Catholic university, died Aug. 31, 2015, of complications due to a stroke. He was 83. A member of the John Wesley Club, he received his degree with honors. He received his rabbinical ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and served as a U.S. Navy chaplain at Parris Island, S.C., and with the 7th Fleet in the Pacific. A respected scholar of Jewish mysticism, he was a tireless promoter of interfaith dialogue and was one of the first rabbis to officiate at interfaith and same sex marriages. At Georgetown, he was instrumental in creating a milieu for Jewish-Christian theological dialogue and seeking common ground between Jewish and Jesuit theology. In 2003 he helped establish Georgetown’s Program for Jewish Civilization to expand the understanding of Jewish history to include cultural, religious, political, philosophical, literary, and scientific accomplishments. During his years in Washington, he was also B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation director at American University; scholar-in-residence at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va., and at Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Pa.; associate rabbi of Temple Sinai in Washington, D.C.; and rabbi of Temple B’nai Israel in Easton, Md. Prior to that, he was the rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Mich., and of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation in Dublin, Ireland. Active in the Civil Rights Movement and a frequent visitor to African American churches, he also worked to build interreligious dialogue with Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. He retired this year as the spiritual adviser to the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington, D.C. At the time of his death he was teaching in Georgetown’s theology department and was an active board member for Moment Magazine, the country’s leading independent Jewish magazine, which established The Rabbi Harold S. White Fellowship in 2010 to train young journalists in his honor. He was the cousin of the late Myron E. White of the class of 1941. Survivors include his son, Ross McQuilkin, six nieces and nephews, and a large extended family.