Classmates,

Our classmate, Bernie Steinberg, died Sunday, January 14, 2024, age 78. Bernie grew up in St. Louis and majored in English literature at Wesleyan. After Wesleyan he went on to receive an MA from Brandeis and a PhD in Jewish philosophy from Hebrew University. He lived in Israel for 13 years and then worked at Harvard as the director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010. In 2012 he moved to Berkeley, California, where he was a vice president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and was a visiting scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. According to one article that I read after he died, “Most recently, he lived in Chicago, where his son Avi is an author and lecturer in nonfiction writing at the University of Chicago. He is also survived by his wife, Roz; a daughter, Adena; and a granddaughter.”

In one obituary, a former student is quoted saying the following about Bernie: “I have rarely if ever met anyone so committed to the sacred art of nurturing young adults and encouraging them to blossom. Over and above the hundreds and hundreds of undergraduate students he guided and counseled . . . when I worked at Hillel there was always a steady stream of young Jewish professionals who would come to see Bernie—to get his advice, to receive his assurance, to be challenged to think differently and more deeply about whatever was on their mind. The list of people Bernie mentored is like a who’s who of Jewish communal leadership.”