For the past four years, the ICJS has relied upon the guidance of an exceptional local rabbinate and the counsel of visiting scholars and educators to help chart its course. Yet the organization has sorely missed the presence of a Jewish scholar who participates in the rough and tumble of the daily routine. When Rabbi Shira Lander, the first rabbi to join the ICJS staff, left to pursue her doc-torate, a void was created that could not be easily filled. How do you track down an individual who knows the borders between two complex traditions? Where do you find a person who speaks the peculiar lan-guages of Jews and Christians? Where do you locate an accom-plished scholar who is also an engaging educator? Can a person be found who can articulate the wisdom and beauty of Judaism to Christians, and whose knowledge of the Chris-tian tradition enables him to provide Jews with a sense of the vitality and grandeur of Christianity? How do you discover individuals who stand firmly in their own tradition, but are willing to step onto the tight rope and juggle serious religious questions before diverse audiences?

The job requires a rare talent, and that talent is clearly evi-dent in the person appointed as the next ICJS Jewish Scholar. David Fox Sandmel grew up in a family where Jewish and Christian scholars frequently converged around the dinner table. His father, the late Dr. Samuel Sandmel, traversed the field of Intertestimental Literature for many years at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his pioneering contributions to the study of the New Testament have set a standard for subsequent generations of scholars, Jewish and Christian. David obviously drank deeply from the family well.

While his academic odyssey has carried him from Ohio State University back to the Hebrew Union College and finally to the University of Pennsylvania, David has continued to examine the interplay of Judaism and Christianity. He is currently com-pleting a dissertation that explores the ways that modern Jewish scholars have read and interpreted the birth of Chris-tianity and the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism. This inquiry not only presupposes a thorough familiarity with the world of the New Testament, but also a solid grasp of the contemporary scholarship on "the Partings of the Ways."

In addition to his scholarly credentials, David brings to the ICJS significant experience within the rabbinate. Upon gradu-ating from the Hebrew Union College, David served as the Director of Education at a large congregation in Cleveland, Ohio. He subsequently undertook the daunting challenge of founding a Reform congregation in Portland, Maine. Under his tutelage, the synagogue grew dramatically and evolved into a dynamic center for Jewish learning. After five years in Port-land, David decided that the time to pursue his life-long dream of doctoral study was running out, and so the Sandmel family migrated south to Philadelphia.

While David completes this academic marathon, he will com-mute to Baltimore on a weekly basis and participate in a variety of our educational initiatives. Next year at this time, he hopes to be settled in Baltimore and functioning as the full-time Jewish scholar. We share the same dream. He looks forward to participating in an educational enterprise that will challenge him to translate scholarship so that it invigorates the larger community. He is clearly at home in the classroom, the board room, and the living room. The ICJS will provide him with opportunities to work with diverse audiences in diverse settings. We are delighted to welcome David, his wife Janet, and their two children to Baltimore, and we hope that you take advantage of occasions when you can see for yourselves the newest treasure that has come to the ICJS.