David Ellenson

American rabbi and academic administrator (1947–2023)

David Ellenson (November 21, 1947 – December 7, 2023) was an American rabbi and academic who was known as a leader of the Reform movement in Judaism. Ellenson was director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and visiting professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University and previously president of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC JIR). He previously served as president of HUC JIR from 2001 to December 31, 2013, and was later chancellor emeritus of that college until his death. Ellenson had served as interim president following the death of his successor, Aaron D. Panken until the inauguration of Andrew Rehfeld, the 10th and current President.

Ellenson was born on June 25, 1947, in Brookline, Massachusetts, and grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Newport News, Virginia. He was president of the student body at Newport News High School in 1964–65. Ellenson graduated from the College of William and Mary with a B. A. in 1969. In 1972, he earned an M. A. in religious studies from the University of Virginia. He was then ordained at HUC JIR in 1977 and received his Ph. D from Columbia University in 1981.

Ellenson was first appointed a member of the faculty in Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College in 1979. David Ellenson and his daughter Ruth Andrew Ellenson, editor of The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt, both won the National Jewish Book Award in 2006, the only father and daughter to do so in the same year since Abraham Joshua Heschel and Susannah Heschel. President George W. Bush appointed Ellenson to serve on delegation to accompany him to Jerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in May 2008. In 2009 Newsweek named him # 5 on its list of "50 Influential Rabbis."

Ellenson died on December 7, 2023, at the age of 76.