Америкалық раввин және ағылшын футболшысы

American rabbi
the English footballer

Gordon Tucker is a prominent rabbi, with a reputation as both a political and a theological liberal in Conservative Judaism. He is the former senior rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York. Since September 2020, he has served as the Vice Chancellor for Religious Life and Engagement at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

A 1967 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Tucker holds the A. B. degree from Harvard College and a PhD. (in Philosophy) from Princeton University. He was ordained a Rabbi in 1975 by The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). He has served on the faculty of JTS since 1976, currently serving as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Jewish philosophy, in addition to his duties as a congregational rabbi. From 1984 to 1992 he served as dean of the Rabbinical School at JTS. He subsequently became rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York, following the retirement of Rabbi Arnold S. Turetsky. Tucker has served as chairman of the Board of the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel, and as a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly. In 2006, his name was listed as one of the frontrunners for the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, to replace Chancellor Ismar Schorsch upon his retirement. Arnold Eisen was ultimately chosen for the position.

Rabbi Tucker's most widely known scholarly work is his translation with notes and commentaries of writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Tucker translated Heschel's Torah min HaShamayim BeAspaklariah shel HaDorot (Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations) from the original Hebrew into English, and provided many notes, essays, and commentaries. In her forward to Heavenly Torah, Heschel's daughter Susannah Heschel describes the scope and magnitude of this translation. "Gordon Tucker (and Rabbi Leonard Levin) have done a superb job of assembling, editing, abridging, and translating a huge, not quite finished manuscript. Others literally died trying to translate this sprawling masterpiece. There may be some dissent from the inevitable omissions, some few typos, some doubts about Tucker's interpretations. But on the whole, the introductions to each chapter, the explanatory notes on almost every page (including identifying Heschel's often obscure sources) are wonderful aids in working through this massive work." Heschel differed with the more legalistic approach to Torah of the Lithuanian rabbis who dominated the interpretation of halacha and the exegesis of Torah in the 20th century. He emphasized aggadah and midrash, the often speculative writings of the rabbinical sages that were outside the Torah's legal framework. Because these writings were not as heavily edited or redacted as the Mishna and Gemara, Heschel's Hebrew manuscript reflects a variety of difficult Hebrew prose styles. Or N. Rose, a reviewer of Heavenly Torah, praised Tucker and Levin for capturing the qualities of Heschel's original manuscript in their translation. "Not only is this English version a lucid and thoughtful reworking of the original text, but Tucker and Levin even manage to introduce into their translation a measure of the poeticism readers have come to expect of Heschel."

Tucker is currently married to Dr. Amy Cohn, with whom he has a son and daughter, Micah and Becky. He was previously married to Hadassah Freilich (now Lieberman), with whom he has a son, Rabbi Ethan Tucker, a rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Hadar. His first wife later married Senator Joseph Lieberman, who became the first Jewish candidate for national office with a major political party.