Henry Alan Green

Henry Alan Green is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami, and has taught there since 1984. After completing postgraduate work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Oxford, and the Sorbonne, he received his Ph.D. in Religion from St. Andrew's University in 1982. He is the published author or co-author of four books and numerous articles, and has received recognition for his work on documenting the exodus of Jews from Arab countries after the Second World War.

Education

Green received his B.A. in Sociology from Carleton University in 1970. He then completed post-baccalaureate work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1970-1971, before returning to Carleton University for his M.A. in Sociology in 1973. Following that, he completed postgraduate work at the University of Oxford (1974) and the École pratique des hautes études (1975-1976) in Religion and Sociology, before completing his Ph.D. in Divinity at St. Andrew's University in 1982, with a dissertation focused on gnosticism in early Christianity, and its Jewish roots.

Teaching, visiting fellowships, and visiting professorships

Green has been a professor at the University of Miami since 1984. He was Director of the Judaic Studies Program at the University of Miami from its inception in 1984 until 2000, and introduced a Sephardic Studies concentration during his tenure.

In Canada, Green served as a research associate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1977-1979, Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta from 1979-1980, and as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Post-Doctoral Fellow at Carleton University from 1981-1983. He also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics and Religion at Dickinson College from 1983-1984.

Green was also a Skirball Fellow at the University of Oxford in 1991, served as a University College Fellow at the University of Toronto from 2001-2002, and also served as a Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Jewry, located in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 2009.

Academic projects

HIPPY USA

During his tenure as a research associate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's School of Education from 1977-1979, Green was heavily involved in research examining how to strengthen children's early cognitive skills and parental bonds. This research evolved into an early childhood education program, HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters), an evidence-based program that strengthens families and communities by helping parents prepare their children for school success. HIPPY was mentioned in Hillary Clinton's book It Takes a Village as one of the successful organizations helping to empower parents and increase children's cognitive skills and school readiness across the United States, and former President Clinton spoke very highly of HIPPY and Secretary of State Clinton's role in its growth during the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Green was instrumental in exporting the HIPPY model from Israel to the United States and Canada, and served as the national chair of HIPPY USA's Board of Trustees from 2000 to 2003, receiving acknowledgment for his work from Secretary of State Clinton during an awards dinner in 2014. He currently sits on the HIPPY Florida Advisory Committee, and is a former Vice Chair of the Board of Directors in HIPPY Canada.

Jews from Arab Countries and Sephardi Voices

Green is very active as a voice for Sephardi Jews, both in the United States and abroad. He testified before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington D.C. in 2007, on the topic of truth, justice, and reconciliation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and serves on a number of boards for Sephardi-related organizations. The Sephardi Voices Project is the first comprehensive digital archive that documents and preserves the life stories of Jews who lived in Islamic lands with videos, audio, and photographs. Green's most recent book, SEPHARDI VOICES: The Untold Expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands is the culmination of this project and Green's work on Sephardi Jews. Additionally, he has been a member of the Executive Committee for Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) since 2012, and has been a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the American Sephardi Federation since 2008

Green is also the founder and Executive Director of Sephardi Voices, an international NGO formed in 2009 and dedicated to collecting the testimonies of the "forgotten exodus" of Jews from Arab countries. Sephardi Voices has collected hundreds of audio-visual interviews with Jewish migrants, refugees, and displaced persons from North Africa, Iran, and the Middle East, and its short film What We Left Behind premiered at numerous Jewish film festivals to significant acclaim. His work with Sephardi Voices has garnered recognition from a variety of Jewish publications and various organizations, and he has presented at dozens of conferences on the subjects of oral life-stories, migration and identity, and the importance of including Sephardi history post-colonialism into the narrative of Jewish peoplehood.

South Florida Jewry and the Jewish Museum of Florida

Green is a noted scholar on the subject of American Sephardi and Mizrahi, the sociology of Judaism, and South Florida Jewry. He has published several articles on the subject of Jewish demographics in South Florida, and wrote the biography of Rabbi Leon Kronish, the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Sholom from 1944-1984, and a notable figure both among South Florida Jewry and in American Reform Judaism in general.

He is also the Founding Director of "MOSAIC: Jewish life in Florida", a project conceived in 1985. The project morphed into a traveling exhibit, with documents and artifacts of Floridian Jewish life sourced by volunteers and coordinators from all across the state, with an accompanying exhibit guidebook. After a national tour that ended in 1995, MOSAIC became the core exhibit of the newly minted Jewish Museum of Florida, today a project of Florida International University, and the Museum is housed out of the first synagogue ever built on Miami Beach (1929). Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen recently toured the Museum with Green, and later applauded the Museum's work in a session of the House of Representatives.

Judaism and Early Christianity

Green is a noted scholar on the sociological origins of gnosticism, and its reliance on Judaism as a foundational element. He has written extensively on the subject, and the book based on his dissertation is viewed as the most significant contribution to the sociological origins of gnosticism, three decades after its publication.

Publications

Books

• Henry Alan Green, The Economic and Social Origins of Gnosticism, Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1985, pp. 304.
• Henry Alan Green and Marcia Zerivitz, MOSAIC: Jewish Life in Florida, MOSAIC, Inc./University Presses of Florida, Miami and Gainesville, 1991, pp. 80. Chosen as Alternate Selection by the Jewish Book Club.
• Henry Alan Green, Gesher VaKesher -- Bridges and Bonds: The Life of Leon Kronish, South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, Scholars Press, 1995, pp. 287.
• Henry Green and Denise Necoechea, HIPPY Health Curriculum, University of South Florida, Tampa, 2006, 138 pages; 2010, 117 pages.
• Henry Green and Denise Necoechea, Plan De Estudio De La Salud Del Programa HIPPY (Spanish translation), University of South Florida, Tampa, 2010, 117 pages.
• Henry Green and Richard Stursberg, Sephardi Voices: The Untold Expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands, Figure 1, Vancouver, 2021, 156 pages. [Selected as the 4th most popular review of 2022 by the Jewish Book Council.]
• Henry Green and Paul George, Jewish Miami Beach, Arcadia, Charleston, SC, 2023 (forthcoming, autumn).
• Henry Alan Green, The Forgotten Exodus of Arab Jews, (in process) – Mango Press

Articles and Book Reviews of SEPHARDI VOICES: The Untold Expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands

• " 'Sephardi voices': The Tragedy, triumph of expelled Jewish communities- review," in The Jerusalem Post, Dvora Waysman, April 14, 2022.
• "A Fresh Perspective on Jewish Culture," sponsored by Dangoor Foundation, in The UK Jewish Renaissance, Rebecca Taylor, July 2022.
• Book Review of SEPHARDI VOICES: The Untold Expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands, in The Journal of the Israel Oral History Association, Margalit Bejarano, July 2022.
• "Sephardi Voices: Jews in Arab Lands," in The Times of Israel, Sheldon Kirshner, September 9, 2022.
• " Forgotten Arabian Jews Recount Lives of Happiness and Horror," in The Media Line, Sara Miller and Debbie Mohnblatt, November 11, 2022.

Video/Film

• Jewish Life in Florida, co-producer, MOSAIC, Miami, USA, 1992, 22-minute documentary. Generations in the Sun, resident scholar, Higher Authority Productions, Miami, USA, 2002, PBS/WLRN 60- minute documentary.
• Who Do You think You Are, CBC TV (Toronto, Canada), consultant and interviewee, Steven Page episode, October 25, 2007, 30 minutes.
• VIEWPOINT : Pew Study of Jews in the USA, Aired: November 17, 2013 at 12:30 PM; WPBT 2, Miami, USA.
• Sephardi Voices: Seven Stories, J-Doc, London, England, 2011, 18 minutes, Executive Producer. Premiere - International Oral History Association Meetings, Prague, Czech, July 2010.
• Sephardi Voices, Sephardi Voices Production, Miami USA, 3 minutes, interviewer, writer, director and producer. Presented at Justice for Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries Conference, Jerusalem, Israel, September 2012
• Moroccan Diasporas: London, Montreal, Miami, Sephardi Voices Production, Miami USA, 10 minutes, interviewer, writer, director and producer. Premiere - Moroccan Jewry Conference, University of London, London, June 2011.
• What We Left Behind, Sephardi Voices Production, Miami, USA, 6:38 minutes. Producer. Juried/Referred --- Selected Film Festivals: NY International Sephardi Film Festival, New York, March 2014; UK Jewish Film Festival, London, November 2014; Miami Jewish Film Festival, May 2015; San Diego Jewish Film Festival, February 2015; Atlanta Jewish Film Festival February 2015; Toronto Jewish Film Festival May 2015 (http://www.7thart.com/films/What-We-Left-Behind.)
• Sephardi Voices: Telling Our Story, USA, Sephardi Voices Production, 4:34 minutes, Interviewer, Writer and Producer. Toronto, November 2015.
• Letter to Elina, Sephardi Voices Production, 5:48 minutes, Interviewer, Co-Writer with David Langer, Producer, Toronto, 2017.
• Portraits: Iraqi Jewish Voices, Sephardi Voices Production, 6:22 minutes, Co-Interviewer, Co-Writer and Producer, Miami, September 2017.
• Last Class in Baghdad, Sephardi Voices Production, Miami, USA, 13 minutes. Executive Producer. Juried/Referred --- Selected Film Festivals: London Jewish Film Festival November 2018 (http://www.7thart.com/films/Last-Class-in-Baghdad); SV testimonies (8 – produced, English), Sephardi Voices Production, 2:00 mins. Co-interviewer, co-writer and producer, Toronto, Canada (Fall 2019)
• SV testimonies

Referred Articles/Book Chapters

• "Gnosis and Gnosticism: A Study of Methodology," Numen 24 1977, 95-134.
• "Suggested Sociological Themes in the Study of Gnosticism," Vigiliae Christiane 31, 1977, 169-180.
• "Ritual in Valentinian Gnosticism: A Sociological Interpretation," Journal of Religious History, 12/2,

1982, 109-124.

• "The Gnostic Temptation," Viewpoints, 12/8, 1984
• "Jewish Identification and Assimilation: Continuities and Discontinuities in Roman Egypt," in Society of Biblical Literature, 1985 Seminar Papers, ed. K. H. Richards, Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1985, 505-514.
• "The Socio-Economic Background of Christianity in Egypt," in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, eds. B. Pearson and J. Goering, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1986, 100-113.
• "Interpersonal Relations, Ethnic Structure and Economy: A Sociological Reading of Jewish Identification

in Roman Egypt," in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division B, Volume 1, World Union of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1986, 15-22.

• "A Comparative Profile of Jewish Elderly in South Florida and Israel" with Ira Sheskin and Pnina Zadka, in Contemporary Jewry, 11/2, Fall 1990, 93-119. Reprinted in Jewish Population Studies 25, eds. U.O., Schmelz and S. Della Pergola, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 1993, 154-165.
• "The Jewish Community," in City Guide to Miami, ed. J. Biondi, Apa, London, 1991, 71-73.
• "Power and Knowledge: A Study in the Social Development of Early Christianity", in Studies in Religion,

20/2, 1991, 217-231. One of three finalists for "best year’s article", Studies in Religion, 1991.

• "Sefardies en la Florida", in Magen, 81/2, 1991, 29-35.
• “Hollywood and Popular Culture: The American Jewish Experience” and “Jewish Civilization: Society, Culture and Religion” in The Sociology of Jewry: A Curriculum Guide, ed. Jack Porter, American Sociological Association, New York, 1998, 218-234.
• “Jews in Miami”, South Florida History, 26/4, 1998, 10-13.
• “The Israelization of Miami, Reform Judaism and American Jewry”, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Association of Jewish Libraries, AJL, New York, 2000, 294-295.
• “Preface”, in Diccionario de Haquetia by Isaac Benharroch, Centro de Estudios Sefardies de Caracas, Venezuela, 2004, 15-17.
• “Leon Kronish: Miami Beach’s 20th Century Prophet” in Andrea Greenbaum, ed., Jews of South Florida, Brandeis University,Waltham, 2005, 162-178.
• “Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: Truth Justice and Reconciliation”, Testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Washington, D.C., July 19, 2007.
• “Transnational Identity and Miami Sephardim” in Contemporary Sephardic Identity in the Americas, eds. Margalit Bejarano and Edna Aizenberg, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 2012, 124-140.
• “The Montreal Moroccan Diaspora: History, Memories and Identities”, in European Judaism, Brill, 52/2, Fall 2019, 129-142.

External links

• Sephardi Voices official website
• HIPPY Canada website
• HIPPY USA website