Noah Efron

Noah Jonathan Efron (born December 16, 1959) is a professor at Bar-Ilan University, where he was founding chair of the interdisciplinary program on Science, Technology, and Society.

Noah Efron
Efron in May 2016
Born	Noah Jonathan Efron (1959-12-16) December 16, 1959 Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S.
Nationality	American, Israeli
Occupation(s)	Professor at Bar-Ilan University, Writer, Podcast Host

He has served as the President of the Israeli Society for History & Philosophy of Science, on the Board of Directors and Scientific Committee of the Eretz Yisrael Museum, and on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is a standing member of Israel's National Committee for Transgenic Plants, and participated in Knesset deliberations on human cloning legislation.

Efron has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a fellow of the Dibner Institute for History of Science and Technology at MIT, a fellow at Harvard University, and a visiting professor at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.

He is a former member of the Tel Aviv City Council, a published author, and the host of a popular podcast.

Biography

Efron was born on December 16, 1959, to Herman and Rosalyn Efron in Plainfield, New Jersey. He grew up in a religious Jewish home, attending a yeshiva and adhering to the rules of kashrut and Shabbat. In his youth he was a member of the Young Judaea youth movement as well as being the bass player for the now-defunct band Liquid Plumr.

Following his graduation from Swarthmore College in 1982, he was awarded a fellowship by the Watson Foundation, which funded a year-long independent research of his choosing. Efron spent the following year traveling throughout Northern Africa researching its Jewish communities.

In 1983 Efron moved to Israel with his girlfriend Susan Warchaizer (whom he married 1986), as part of a gar'in aliyah. They lived on Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel for the next four years. While at Ketura, he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as an infantry soldier and squad commander in the Nahal Division. He moved to Tel Aviv to attend graduate school in 1987.

Following his doctoral studies (see below), he first began working at Bar-Ilan University in a graduate program for interdisciplinary studies in 1999, as a lecturer on the history and philosophy of science. In 2000, he founded the interdisciplinary program on Science, Technology, and Society, which he chaired until 2010, and where he continues to teach to this day (he was tenured in 2005).

Education

Efron received his B.A. from Swarthmore College, where he graduated with high honors (in psychology, philosophy, and political science), Class of 1982. In 1996, he received his Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University's Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Ideas. He was a post-doctoral fellow of the Department of History of Science of Harvard University between 1995 and 1997, and later a post-doctoral fellow of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1997 and 1999.

Writings

Major publications

Real Jews: Secular Versus Ultra-Orthodox: The Struggle for Jewish Identity in Israel – published by Basic Books in 2003, the book discusses and provides a detailed historical analysis of the divide and the hostilities between secular Jews and the ultra-orthodox in the Jewish state.

Judaism and Science: A Historical Introduction – published by the Greenwood Publishing Group in 2007, the book is an historical analysis and explanation of the relationship between the Jewish people and science.

A Chosen Calling: Jews in Science in the Twentieth Century – published by JHU Press in 2014, the book theorizes about the reason for Jews’ allegedly inherent affinity and aptitude for the sciences in the 20th century.

Articles

Efron's essays have appeared in Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, Hadassah Magazine, Commentary, Moment, Midstream, the Boston Book Review, the Jewish Review of Books, Haaretz, Yediot Aharonot, Maariv, Le Monde, Tikkun, Jewish Action, the Jewish World Review, the Jerusalem Report, Zocalo Public Square, the Times of Israel, and the Huffington Post. In 2006, he was awarded the Simon Rockower Award for Best Essay or Commentary of 2006 on a Jewish theme. Following is a partial list of Efron's published articles:

• ‘The End of Pre-Eminence: Jews & the Nobel Prize in the 20th Century,” Jüdischer Almanach des Leo Baeck Institute, Vol. 23, Forthcoming, 2015. • “Jews and the Study of Nature,” in James Haag, Gregory Peterson, and Michael Spezio, The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science, Routledge, 2012, pp. 79–90.

• “Zionism and the Eros of Science and Technology,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 46, 2, June 2011, pp. 413–428.

• “Nature & Early Judaism,” in John Hedley Brooke and Ronald Numbers (eds.), Science and Religion Around the World, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 20–43.

• “The Wisdom of Everyman”: The Natural, the Sacred and the Human in Modern Jewish Thought,” in Paul J. Kirbas (ed.), This Sacred Earth: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Nature and Humanity’s Place Within It, Wyndham Hall Press, 2011, pp. 189-202.

• “Sciences and Religions: What it Means to take Historical Perspectives Seriously” in Thomas Dixon, Geoffrey Cantor and Stephen Pumfrey (eds.), Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 247–262.

• “Without a Horse: On Being Human in an Age of Biotechnology” in Nancey Murphy and Christopher Knight, Human Identity at the Intersection of Science, Theology and Religion, :London, Ashgate, 2010.

• “On the Christian Origins of Modern Science,” in Ron Numbers (ed), Galileo went to Jail, and Other Myths of Science and Religion, Harvard University Press, 2010.

• “Jews and Science prior to Modern Times” in Ron Numbers & John Brooke (eds.), Religion and Science in a Global Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2010.

• “Science, Technology, & Culture,” Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2008.

• “American Jews & Intelligent Design”, Reilly Center Reports of the University of Notre Dame, 2008.

• "Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism: Review", Isis, 2008, 99: 416–418

• “Playing God: On the Philosophical Implications of a Metaphor about Science,” in Charles L. Harper (ed.), Spiritual Information: Perspectives on Science and Religion, Templeton Press, 2005.

• “Nature, Human Nature, & Jewish Nature In Early Modern Europe,” Science in Context, 15:1, 2002.

• “Our Forefathers Did Not Tell Us: Jews & Natural Philosophy in Rudolfine Prague,” Endeavor, 26:1, 2002.

• “Astronomic Exegesis: Interpretation of the Heavens by Early Modern Jews,” Osiris, 16, pp. 72–87, 2001. (with Menachem Fisch)

• “Knowledge of Newly Discovered Lands among Jewish Communities of Europe (From 1492 to the Thirty-Years War),” in Bernardini, Paolo & Norman Fiering (eds.),The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, Berghahn Press, 2001.

• “Common Goods: Jewish and Christian Householder Cultures in Early Modern Prague,” Sally McKee (ed.) Crossing Boundaries: Issues of Cultural Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Brepols, pp. 233–256, 2000.

• “Irenism and Natural Philosophy in Rudolfine Prague,” Science in Context, 10:4, 1997, pp. 627–649.

• “Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe,” Journal for the History of Ideas, Fall, 1997, pp. 719–732.

• “Jews and Liberal Arts in Early Modern Prague,” Acta Historiae Rerum Naturalium Necnon Technicarum, Vol. I (New Series), 1997, pp. 24–35.

• “Diagnosis, Dogmatism, and Rationality,” Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 19:1, January, 1997, pp. 40–56. (with Jonathan Rabinowitz)

• “Science Naturalized, Science Denatured: An Evaluation of Ronald Giere’s Cognitivist Approach to Explaining Science,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 13, 1991, pp. 187–221. (with Menachem Fisch)

• “Irrationality in Data Collection and Analysis as an Impediment to Clinical Diagnosis and Evaluation” (In Hebrew), Psychologia, 3, 1992. (with Jonathan Rabinowitz)

• “David ben Solomon Gans,” The Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, YIVO Institute, New York.

• “Maharal of Prague,” The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

• “Moses Isserles,” The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

• “David Gans,” The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

Political career

Efron was a member of the Tel Aviv City Council, as a part of the Ir LeKulanu (Hebrew- עיר לכולנו) party, starting in 2008 and ending in 2011 when he was replaced by Sharon Luzon in accordance with the party's rotation agreement.

His achievements as a member of the city council include:

• His proposed plan for the improvement of public transportation - Mahir BaEir (Hebrew – מהיר בעיר). Among the changes proposed in the plan are more frequent bus departures as well as dedicated bus lanes.

• Demanding increased transparency in city government issues. Efron led a campaign to insure that citizens have an opportunity to voice their ideas and grievances before city council, he also actively advocated for the publishing and digital upload of the city budget plan before and after its approval.

• An organizing role in the Open Night Run (Hebrew מירוץ לילה פתוח); an alternative to the runs heavily sponsored by for-profit organizations and used by them for advertising purposes.

He was also a founding member of the Green Movement party (Hebrew התנועה הירוקה).

The Promised Podcast

In 2011, Efron created and began hosting The Promised Podcast, produced by the Tel Aviv-based podcast network TLV1. The Promised Podcast is dedicated to the discussion of topical issues in Israeli politics from a self-proclaimed leftist view. The Promised Podcast was chosen by Moment magazine as one of the Top Ten Jewish Podcasts and by the Jewish Ledger as one of the "7 Top Jewish podcasts".