Jeffrey A. Summit

Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Ph.D. holds an appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Music and Judaic Studies at Tufts University. He is a Senior Consultant for Hillel International directing the project “Living Our Values” and recently served as the Director of the Innovation Lab at Hebrew College. He holds emeritus appointments at Tufts as Emeritus Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel and Emeritus Jewish Chaplain. He is the author of Singing God's Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism (Oxford University Press) and The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship (Oxford University Press). His CD Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) was nominated for a GRAMMY award. His CD with video Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music and Interfaith Harmony in Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) was awarded Best World Music CD by the Independent Music Awards. His research and writing focus on music and identity, music and spiritual experience, music and advocacy, and the impact of technology on the transmission of tradition. Rabbi Summit lectures widely around the country and has been invited to speak at Harvard University, Stanford University, Yale University, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Wesleyan University, the University of California Santa Barbara, Indiana University and the University of Chicago.

Rabbi Summit has a special interest in the values that shape a meaningful and fulfilling life. Together with Rev. Scotty McLennan of Stanford University, he teaches a summer seminar addressing those issues at the Tufts European Center in Talloires, France entitled “What Matters Now?” He also works in the field of oral history and for four summers has conducted an oral history project with the Jewish community of Annecy, France, for American students, under the auspices of Tufts European Center. For three additional summers he taught a seminar at the Tufts European Center on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in France. He has co-directed a project funded by the Department of Homeland Security establishing Muslim, Jewish, Christian dialogues and inter-religious education on five university campuses. He directed the Cummings/Hillel Program on Holocaust and Genocide Education under the auspices of Tufts Hillel. An accomplished musician, he has performed Jewish and traditional American music throughout the United States, as well as in England and Israel. During the Yom Kippur War, he performed for Israeli soldiers in the Sinai and Golan Heights. His songs examining those experiences were recorded on his record album Shepherd of the Highways.