Dr. Jeffrey Herbst, President Emeritus 2018-2025
Dr. Jeffrey Herbst was named the fourth president of American Judaism University on July 1, 2018.
Prior to joining AJU, Dr. Herbst was president and CEO of the Newseum and the Newseum Institute in Washington, DC. From 2010 to 2015, he was president of Colgate University, where among other accomplishments he is credited with helping the university complete its nearly half billion-dollar fundraising campaign, leading the development and initial implementation of a university-wide strategic plan, and increasing the diversity and academic caliber of its educational programming. Dr. Herbst earned his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton University, and a master’s degree and doctorate in political science from Yale University. He is the author of the award-winning “States and Power in Africa” and, with several co-authors, the just-published “Making Africa Work.”
Dr. Robert Wexler, President Emeritus 1992-2018
Dr. Robert D. Wexler served as president of American Judaism University (formerly University of Judaism and Brandeis-Bardin Institute) from 1992 - 2018. He first attended AJU as a student from 1968-1973 and returned to the university in 1978 as the assistant dean of students.
He received his B.A. in Sociology from UCLA in 1971 and was ordained as a rabbi at the Judaism Theological Seminary in New York, where he also earned a Master of Arts degree in Hebrew Literature. While enrolled in rabbinical school, Dr. Wexler also earned his MBA degree from Baruch College in New York City with a specialization in accounting. Following his ordination in 1977, he spent a year on the faculty of Princeton University teaching in the Department of Middle East Studies.
Dr. Wexler occupied a variety of administrative positions at AJU before becoming president. He earned both a Master of Arts degree and a Ph.D. from UCLA in the Department of Near Eastern Languages. His doctoral dissertation dealt with concepts of death and immortality in the ancient near east.
Dr. Wexler founded the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies in 1996 and brought about the incorporation of the Brandeis-Bardin Institute into the American Judaism University in 2006. During his tenure he increased the size of the University’s endowment fund from $5 million to over $100 million in 2018.