David B. Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History at the University of Pennsylvania, Emeritus.
[1] From 1994 to 2014 he was the Ella Darivoff Director of Penn's Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, where he also held a fellowship from 2017 to 2018.
He was trained at the City College of New York, the Teacher's Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Columbia University.
In 2010 he was granted an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, at HUC-JIR’s Graduation Ceremonies in New York, at which event Rabbi David Ellenson, HUC-JIR president said, Ruderman's “expertise in medieval and early modern Jewish history has influenced the international academy, the rabbinate, and the Jewish community in America.
His prolific publications and dynamic leadership represent the epitome of the academic ideal.”[4] Among his many honors are a fellowship at the American Academy of Berlin,[5] and an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award.