Draft:David B. Levy

Early life and education

David graduated from Gilman high school magna cum laude where David received “the love of learning prize” justified apres la letter in the alumni post about David.

David B Levy [PhD 2000, MLS 1995 ] became a researcher, librarian, writer, lecturer on youtube. There are listed over 50 publications in the National Library of Israel library catalog by David B. Levy.

A photo of a tincture of the percentage of book jackets

Early librarian jobs and earning PhD

David’s worked in a variety of libraries:

1. Public: Enoch Pratt where David authored an bibliography of its Yiddish and Hebrew holdings that was acknowledged as an important resource for cataloging at the Amherst Yiddish book Center by Naomi Glick:

Letter penned by Nansi Glick

2. At Pratt David work every Sunday and week day except Fridays and fielded tens of thousands of reference questions and selected books in religion, philosophy, languages, and other areas as noted by Head of the Humanities Department Bob Burke:

Letter penned by Bob Burke

3. While working at Pratt and earning a PhD David published many articles including one in Drobitsky Yar Kharkov noted below:

Letter acknowledging publication of article

4. David also worked in other types of Baltimore libraries including (2) Educational (Board of Jewish Education), (3) synagogue (Beth Avraham), and (4) Yeshivot (Ner Israel), (5) University (UMCP & TC). While working at Pratt David helped countless Jewish and non-Jewish patrons and organizations. David came to be known as the "go-to" person for various synagogues as noted by the letter from Beth El Congregation:

Beth L Congregation Letter

Acknowledgments for David's works

While working at the Enoch Pratt public library David earned a PhD in Jewish Studies and was a recipient of the Gedaliah and Rosa Cohen prize and Sidney Breitbart prizes while serving as a driver for Kosher Meals on Wheels out of Sinai Hospital in early morning. David’s rabbinic teacher was Rabbi Dr. Joseph Baumgarten whose letter bellow notes “David is among the most distinguished students we have ever had at the Uniersity. His work in biblical literature and philosophy is characterized by thorough research, facility with foreign languages including German, French, Latin, ancient Greek, and Hebrew, and a breadth of interest which one rarely finds among contemporary students.”

Letter of reference

Dr A. Udoff echoed these kudos when he wrote, “In the whole of my teaching experience I have never encountered anyone with David’s reverential love of books and devotion to study. This profound feeling for literature takes the form of a remarkably generous culture of interests. Virtually the whole of the liberal arts and Jewish traditions is represented in these interests- traditions that Dr. Levy knows intimately and in many instances in the original languages of their composition.”

Letter penned by Dr. Udoff

While a graduate student, David gave papers at venues such as Association of Jewish studies, Association of Jewish libraries, Jewish museum of Maryland, and American Philosophical Association. Letter from AJS below:

Letter from AJS

While David served about 10 years in the public library, David was also sought out by University Professors for high level graduate research testified by this letter from a Professor of the history of medicine at Boston University below:

Letter seeking David's assistance

Time spent as Head Librarian at Lander College for women of Touro College in New York

Eventually David left Baltimore by accepting the head Judaica library position at Touro College and subsequently worked as Head Librarian of Lander College for Women. CEO Dr A. Kadish thanked David for his assistance on Research:

Letter penned by Alan Kadish

David authored an article on Head reference work and, while serving as head librarian, he published in a wide variety of peer reviewed journals, book reviews (David authored 6 volumes alone titled The Art of the Book Review), and about 50 books.

A tincture of David’s publications on the Touro site are listed on (1) Faculty pubs Touro University Libraries and (2) Touro scholar and library blogs more extensively listed in 98 page bibliography of publications at linkedin .

David still remains active in the AJL which published about 18 lectures in the Proceedings and over about 1000 book reviews.

Publications in Peer Reviewed Journals: Casting a Wide Scope of Interdisciplinary Fields

A large scope across many interdisciplinary academic fields such as (a) classics, (b) philosophy, (c) musicology, (d) sociology, (e ) jewish studies, (f) Education, (g) library science, (h) folklore, (i) film studies, (j) history, (k) history of science, (l) comparative religion, as noted by the diversity of academic journals David published in including but not limited to project Muse’s enumeration: (1) Classical World, (2) Techne: Research in Philosophy, (3) The Review of Higher Education, (4) La Revue canadienne des sciences de l’information et de bibliothéconomie , (5) Portal: Journal of Libraries and Archival Science, (6) The library: Transactions of the Bibliographical Society,, (7) The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, (8) Journal of Jewish Identities, (9) Jewish Film and New Media, (10) Film and History, (11) Revue canadienne d'études cinématographiques, (12) Shofar, (13) The Journal of the history of medicine and the Allied Sciences,(14) Magic-Ritual-and Witchcraft, (15) Journal of History (formerly the Canadian Journal of history), (16) Information and Culture: a Journal of History, Configurations, (17( Notes (a journal of the Musicology pubished by Harvard University), (18) Journal of Religion and Culture, (19) H-Judaic. See Project Muse for more details.

While David’s dissertation related to Suffering, Catastrophe, Evil in Jewish History: The moral and ethical implications of rabbinic theodicy David was made to more narrowly focus when writing and defending his dissertation. David was in the graduate program at the BHU which like Spertus institute of Jewish Studies, Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, Boston Hebrew College, Gratz College, which emphasized in their foundation classes taught in Hebrew and the option of taking exams in Hebrew, thereby attracting many Israeli students.

David took most of his courses in the rationalist tradition of Jewish philosophy and waited until he was 40 years old to look more into Jewish mysticism. David’s interests indeed are the whole gamut of jewish studies as his 2 vols set Some Early writings Biblical Exegesis, Jewish Philosophy, Jewish History, Hebrew Linguistics, Rabbinics, and Jewish Literature, among others.

Fields covered by David B. Levy

While at Haverford In College David had taken a course in the summer from Gershon Shaked a prominent Israeli Hebrew literary critic of Agnon and other Hebrew literati hommes des lettres and Dr. Moshe Idel on Rabbi Avraham ibn Abulafia, an expert in Jewish Mysticism, that proved an earlier inroad into David’s later devotion to the whole gamut of Jewish studies. In fact David loved to learn so much that David enjoyed and chose to sign up for courses during the summer at Universities such as L’institut des Etude Francais run by Bryn Mawr College where David became interest in the work of French philosopher Emanuel Levinas, Harvard University, Northwestern University, and Middlebury’s Language Institute of Modern Languages, etc. David also signed up for about 8 courses per semester at Haverford when most students took four. While at Haverford David volunteered to work with the blind, geriatric community, and the homeless.

While at BHU David also while working full time took courses in an exchange program with BHU and Johns Hopkins in the both the Ancient Near Eastern Studies Department and German studied Department with emphasis on German Jewish thought. While at JHU David also loved to sit in on Philosophy of Science courses (see David’s book noted by the Philosophy documentation center as a positive contribution, Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science) although David’s knowledge in this the history of science is primarily autodidactic and learned from his father’s love and interest in the field of history of science. In fact David’s book on History of Science was written piecemeal while visiting David’s father in Baltimore and listening to David’s father’s vast knowledge of the subject and drawing on David’s fathers thousands of books in this academic field. In fact in 2017 David edited a five volume set of his father (Zl) in the area of history of medicine and science.

Works of Robert Levy, edited by David Levy.

See also

University of Maryland's Acknowledgement of David B. Levy's accomplishments

Bibliography of David B. Levy