Advisory Committee

Roger Ames is a leading world scholar of Confucian philosophy and interpretation of classical Chinese texts. Having established innovative approaches to Confucianism in a distinguished career at the University of Hawai’i, Professor Ames was invited to serve as Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University, a rare distinction for a foreigner in China teaching Chinese classics. The central goal of his scholarship is to show how Confucian philosophy is relevant in our modern times. Professor Ames wishes to explore how the Jewish people use the Bible similarly as a guide for life throughout the ages until this day. See his lecture and interview on Confucianism and Jewish thought in our video library.

Annping Chin, born in a Manchu family from Liaoning, China, is a senior lecturer of history at Yale University. She is a world-renowned expert in Confucianism, Daoism, and the Chinese intellectual tradition, as well as the excavated ancient Chinese bamboo and silk texts that are a driving force in the revival of traditional scholarship in China. One set of bamboo slips, dated to 300 BCE, includes the earliest manuscript records we have of Confucius conversing about moral cultivation and government policies, as Chin explains in her book The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought & Politics (2007). Chin is interested in comparing the interpretation of ancient texts in the Chinese tradition with the Jewish tradition of commentaries on the Bible. See his lecture-interview on the Chinese vision of an ecological society in our video library.

Daniel Gardner specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of premodern China, having written extensively on the Confucian and Neo-Confucian traditions. Of particular interest to him is how Neo-Confucian commentators like Zhu Xi reinterpreted the ancient classics in light of Buddhist and Daoist philosophy. Having noted the “dialogic” nature of Confucian commentary, Professor Gardner wishes to explore its analogs in the Jewish Bible commentary tradition, which attracted him to the Chinese-Jewish Conversation. Gardner also has a keen interest in contemporary environmental matters in China. He was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship for his current project, “Imagining an ‘Ecological Civilization’: China’s Environmental Turn in the 21st Century.” See Professor Gardner’s lecture-interview on the Chinese vision of an ecological society in our video library.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is senior advisor to the provost and senior program officer of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and is responsible for developing educational and communal initiatives that bridge Torah and general studies. Dr. Halpern is committed to the idea that Jewish texts and values can inform the global moral conversation. He is therefore eager to help create opportunities for conversations between Jewish and Chinese cultures about traditional ideas and their modern applications. Dr. Halpern received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in Psychology in Education from Teachers College at Columbia University, a master’s degree in Bible from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, an MBA in Nonprofit Management from Touro University, a doctorate in education from the Azrieli Graduate School of Education and Administration, and rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Chaim Brovender. He has edited or co-edited 17 books, including most recently, Esther in America, Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States, and Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth. He has taught at Yeshiva University, synagogues, Hillels, and adult educational settings across the US, Europe, and Israel. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Tablet magazine, and the Jewish Review of Books.

Having been raised in an international community in Beijing, Debby Li has always been conscious of cultural and religious differences among communities and individuals. This inspired her to study anthropology and art history at New York University, where she earned a double BA in 2019. Her interests in early cross-cultural connections in forms of food, art, and artifacts carried further and led to the pursuit of a master’s degree in archaeology at the University of Oxford. She earned her MA in Summer 2020, with her thesis on the Chinese dragon and its Neolithic roots receiving a grade of distinction. In February 2019, Debby gave the inaugural lecture of the CJC comparing Chinese and biblical archaeology, as well as an interview with Rebecca Zami, a Yeshiva University graduate student in ancient history. The lecture and interview, which are both available in the CJC video library, have illuminated for Debby the connections between her native Chinese culture and that of the Jewish people. She currently serves on our Advisory Board and offers input for the CJC to deepen the connections between these two ancient cultures and peoples, both past and present.

Rabbi Dr Yakov Nagen is a senior rabbi at the Otniel Yeshiva in Israel, where he teaches Talmud, Jewish thought, and Kabbala. He also serves as director of Ohr Torah Stone’s Blickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue. Originally from New York City, Rabbi Nagen received his rabbinical ordination from RIETS at Yeshiva University and holds a PhD in Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tablet Magazine deemed Rabbi Nagen one of the ten “Israeli Rabbis You Should Know.” He and his wife, Rabbanit Michal Nagen, live in Israel and have seven children. Many of his writings have been translated into Chinese. In 2017 he gave lecture series in Beijing and Shanghai. Nagen see Judaism as incorporating elements both of Eastern and Western philosophy, as he presents in his book "Be, Become, Bless – Jewish Spirituality between East and West." Nagen is a leader in interfaith encounters in Israel and the Middle East between Judaism and Islam. Based on his intercultural outlook, Nagen sees great value in the Chinese-Jewish Conversation. He delivered a highly popular lecture for the CJC in October 2019, in which he compared Chinese and Jewish philosophy.

A graduate of Peking University Law School (1996), Mr Yu qualified as an attorney in China in 1998. He earned a master's degree in law from the University of Missouri (2001) and qualified as an attorney in New York State in 2001. He has worked at Jingtian & Gongcheng Law Firm since 1996 and became a partner there in 2003. In 2016, he obtained the AMAC Fund Practitioner Qualification Certificate and in 2017 he obtained the qualification certificate of independent director of Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Mr Yu's main areas of expertise include international financial law; securities law; foreign investment law; corporate law; mergers and reorganizations; telecommunications law; infrastructure construction law. Mr Yu also maintains a strong interest in Chinese classical culture and its place among other world cultures, having occasionally published his research findings online. This brought him to find special interest in Jewish history and culture. As he notes, the Chinese and Jewish cultures represent two of the oldest continuous traditions of learning and civilization, dating back well over three thousand years—while still maintaining their vitality in the modern world. Motivated by this insight, Mr Yu has become an ardent supporter of, and participant in, the Chinese Jewish Conversation at YU.

Rebecca Zami teaches Jewish history in Magen David Yeshivah High School in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her BA in anthropology and Jewish studies from Stern College for Women, where she studied the archaeology of ancient Israel and the Near East, and participated in excavations around Israel. She subsequently received an MA in ancient Jewish history from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. Rebecca previously served as the Leon Charney Research Associate at the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies, where she helped develop the exhibition Samaritans: A Biblical People. Rebecca’s interest in archaeology brought her to the Chinese-Jewish Conversation, where she met Debby Li, who is passionate about ancient Chinese archaeology. The two young budding scholars discovered how much there is to learn by comparing the ancient cultures of Israel and China, and how the discipline of archaeology and national memory enrich us in our modern society. As Rebecca notes, “Participating in the Chinese-Jewish Conversation has broadened my purview of ancient history and the relationship between neighboring and far-flung regions.”

Having graduated Beijing University of Technology (1999), Mrs Qian Zhou is a China National First-Class Registered Architect and Canadian Architectural Design Consultant. She is a member of the Beijing Women Architects Association and a Council Member of the Human Settlement and Environment Committee of the Beijing Planning Society. For 21 years she has worked at the Beijing Victory Star Architectural & Civil Engineering Design Co., where she currently serves as an Associate Director. She has extensive experience in residential, commercial, and educational architectural design, as well the improvement of old neighborhoods. During her time at Victory Star, she has designed over 1.5 million square residential meters, providing her clients with a new modern Chinese design concept, which has seen great success within the market and received multiple accolades and awards. Mrs Zhou also has over 15 years of experience in project management, in a wide variety of styles, ranging from office plans of 50,000 square meters, to commercial projects of 500,000 square meters, and residential projects of 1.5 million square meters. Her personal interests range from literature, painting, and design to Chinese and Western art and architectural history. As part of her professional work, she has come across varying synagogue designs in the Chinese cities of Harbin and Shanghai. This led her to become curious about Jewish material culture, and she now lends her insights to the Chinese-Jewish Conversation at YU.