Faculty, Staff and Advisory Board

Nechama Price
Executive Director, Graduate Program in Advanced Talmud and Tanach Studies (GPATS)
Clinical Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and Bible, Stern College for Women

Dr. Nechama Price is the Executive Director of Yeshiva University’s Graduate Program for Advanced Talmud and Tanach Studies (GPATS) and is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and Bible at Stern College for Women. Nechama received certification from GPATS, earned masters degrees from Azrieli Graduate School and Bernard Revel Graduate School, and an Ed.D. from Azrieli Graduate School focusing her research on the impact of female Torah scholar role models on high school students. In addition, she is a certified Yoetzet Halacha, and currently serves as a Yoetzet Halacha (Halakhic Advisor) for the communities of Teaneck, Bergenfield, Englewood, Tenafly, Livingston, West Orange, and Long Branch NJ. Nechama’s first book, Tribal Blueprints, delves into the lives and unique traits of the twelve tribes. In her upcoming book, Villains of Genesis, she aims to reveal the depth and complexity behind some of the most infamous characters in the biblical narrative. Nechama lectures broadly on topics in Tanach, Halacha, and women’s religious life.

Rebecca Cypess 

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education; Mordecai D. Katz and Dr. Monique C. Katz Dean, Undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Rebecca Cypess is Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Mordecai D. Katz and Dr. Monique C. Katz Dean of the Undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yeshiva University. Committed to the model of servant-leadership, she strives to promote and highlight excellence in teaching, research, and service among the faculty, students, and staff of Stern College for Women and Yeshiva College. Cypess is dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary thinking and scholarly collaboration, especially by helping to bring the expansive study of Torah into dialogue with deep, open-ended inquiry across the academic disciplines. She writes about the purposes of higher education in Jewish Life at Wake the Dawn: A Jewish Vision of Higher Education. Prior to her work at Yeshiva University, Cypess served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Music at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Notable accomplishments from her administrative tenure there include the creation of an Arts in Health Research Lab in collaboration with the Rutgers School of Public Health and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, as well as the establishment of interdisciplinary curricular programs in collaboration with the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the Rutgers Business School. She also served for eight years as founding co-chair of Rutgers JFAS (Jewish Faculty, Administrators, and Staff), a grassroots group of Jewish employees that combats antisemitism as well as anti-Israel bias and promotes a positive, supportive environment for Jews on campus. Starting in 2023, the disturbing rise in antisemitism in higher education led Cypess to begin publishing and speaking widely on the purposes of academia and how it can be reclaimed as a site of reason and understanding. Her work on these issues has appeared in venues such as Tablet, Inside Higher Ed, and the Wall Street Journal. 
 

Haviva Chernigoff, Program Coordinator
Haviva Chernigoff is the Program Coordinator for The Office of Torah and Spiritual Life at Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University.  As part of this role, she is also the program coordinator for GPATS. Haviva holds a Bachelors of Science in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business. Outside of Stern, Haviva is a community happiness coordinator for Daily Giving.
 

Talmud Faculty

Rabbi David Nachbar

Rabbi David Nachbar received his semicha from RIETS and continued his studies as a member of the Bella and Harry Wexner Kollel Elyon of Yeshiva University.  He also holds a master’s degree in medieval Jewish history from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies.  Rabbi Nachbar currently serves as a maggid shiur for GPATS and as a Judaic Studies faculty member at TABC in Teaneck.


 

Tanach Faculty

Dr. Michelle Levine

Dr. Michelle Levine is Associate Professor of Bible at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University, where she has taught since 2001.  She holds a BA, summa cum laude with honors, from Brooklyn College, an MS in Bible from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, and a PhD in medieval biblical exegesis from New York University; her dissertation was awarded doctoral fellowships from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Dr. Levine also studied for two years at Michlalah Teacher’s College in Israel.  Dr. Levine is the author of Nahmanides on Genesis: The Art of Biblical Portraiture, which is based on her dissertation, published by Brown University Press (2010).  She has published numerous articles and delivered academic papers on topics in Tanach and medieval biblical exegesis.  Dr. Levine lectures widely across the United States and in Israel on various topics of the Bible and biblical commentaries.
 

Halacha Faculty

Rabbi Gedalyah Berger

Rabbi Gedalyah Berger serves as a Ra"M in the Graduate Program for Women in Advanced Talmud/Tanach Studies at Yeshiva University, and as a maggid shi'ur at the Yo`etzet Halakhah program of Nishmat's Miriam Glaubach Center.  He is part of the Orthodox Union's Department of Synagogue Services in the role of Adult Education Coordinator; before joining the OU, he served for 15 years as Rabbi of Fleetwood Synagogue in Mount Vernon, NY.   Rabbi Berger graduated from Yeshiva College in 1994 with a B.A. in physics, studied for three years at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel under the tutelage of HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l, received his semikhah from RIETS in 1998, and was a fellow of RIETS's Bella and Harry Wexner Kollel Elyon.  He was Northeast Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America from 2013-2015, and currently serves on the RCA’s Executive Committee.
 

Rabbi Ezra Schwartz

Rabbi Ezra Schwartz is a Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS and the Associate Director of its Semikha Program.  He holds five degrees from Yeshiva University including Yadin Yadin.  Rabbi Schwartz served as Rabbi of Mt Sinai Jewish Center of Washington Heights from 2009-2019.