Leah Hochman, PhD

Leah Hochman, PhD, directs the Louchheim School for Judaic Studies at the University of Southern California and serves as associate professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Los Angeles. She is the author of The Ugliness of Moses Mendelssohn: Aesthetics, Religion, and Morality in the Eighteenth Century (Routledge, 2014), the editor of Tastes of Faith: Jewish Eating in the United States (Purdue University Press, 2017), and the coeditor, with Rabbi Michael Marmur, PhD, of Scriptions: Jewish Thoughts and Responses to Covid-19 (https://scriptions.huc.edu, 2021). With Rabbi Stanley M. Davids, she is the coeditor of Re-forming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought (CCAR Press, 2023).

Raised in the Seattle area, she earned her undergraduate degree at Pitzer College and both her MA and PhD in religion and literature from Boston University. After completing fellowships at Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum and the Simon Dubnow Institute, she spent significant time in Berlin writing, researching, and teaching. Before joining the HUC-JIR faculty, she held positions at the University of Florida and Boston University.

CCAR Press works include:


Re-forming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought