For Immediate Press Release
8 January, 2026
The Oxford Interfaith Forum is pleased to announce the establishment of the Annual Interfaith Lectureship in honour of Professor Edward K. Kaplan (Z”L) to celebrate his extraordinary contribution to interreligious education.
The lectureship, endowed by Janna Kaplan on behalf of the Kaplan Family, perpetuates Professor Edward Kaplan’s legacy by seeking to advance interfaith dialogue through new and creative work by scholars of any faith.
The full text of Prof Kaplan’s above quote, written six months before his death, is available here.
Edward K Kaplan. Photo by Richard Lindzen.
About Professor Edward K. Kaplan (Z”L)
Dr Edward ‘Ed’ Kivie Kaplan (1942-2024) was the Kevy and Hortense Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities at Brandeis University (USA), where he taught French, Comparative Literature, and Religious Studies. A biographer of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and recipient of multiple prizes, he won the National Jewish Book Award (2007) for his publication Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, and his Abraham Joshua Heschel, Prophetic Witness, co-authored with Samuel H Dresner, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Prof Kaplan’s translation of Baudelaire’s Parisian Prowler won the Lewis Galantiere Prize of the American Translators Association and a Choice Outstanding Academic Book.
The detailed list of Professor Kaplan’s academic work is available here.
The Edward K. Kaplan Research Collection on Abraham Joshua Heschel is available here.
The full list of Professor Kaplan’s publications is published below.
Endowed by Janna Kaplan and her Family
Oxford Interfaith Forum gratefully acknowledges
Janna Kaplan and her family’s endowment for
the Edward K. Kaplan Interfaith Lectureship.
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The Kaplan family gift reminds us that inspiration
and collaboration transcends all boundaries.
Together we can build marvellous things!
Janna (Lipmanov) Kaplan is a neuroscientist at Brandeis University specialising in human factors in spaceflight, including weightlessness, artificial gravity and other planetary gravitational environments. A former refusenik from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia), Janna came to the United States in 1981, at age 28, as a political refugee from the Soviet Union, fleeing state-sponsored antisemitic persecution and violence. Janna and Edward met at Brandeis University and married in 1986. In addition to Edward’s son, Jeremy Joshua Kaplan from a prior marriage, Janna and Ed had two children together: Aaron Emmanuel Kaplan, and Simona (Sima) Chava Kaplan.
Jeremy J. Kaplan is an assistant-principal of a public high school in New York. Jeremy’s wife, Rebecca Ballantine, is a literacy specialist and works in the central office of the New York City Public Schools. They have five children and live in Brooklyn, NY.
Aaron E. Kaplan, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in the Greater Boston Area, and a lecturer at the William James College. His wife, Será Godfrey-Kaplan, LICSW, a social worker and a specialist in group therapy, shares the private practice with Aaron and also teaches Group Social Work at Boston University. They have three sons and live in Newton MA.
Sima C. Kaplan, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Philadelphia. Her husband, Ryan Dobran, PhD, is a poet, literary editor, publisher, and communications executive in the non-profit sector. They have a son and live in Philadelphia, PA.
This Endowment is open to—and welcomes!—contributions from individuals and institutions.
If you would like to contribute to the Edward K. Kaplan Interfaith Lectureship Endowment Fund, please go to this link, scroll down to see the following image, and click on ‘Join‘.
The number 36 is highly symbolic because it is double the number 18, which represents ‘life‘ (Chai) in Hebrew. Using gematria (Jewish numerology), the Hebrew letters, Chet (8) and Yud (10), for Chai (life) add up to 18. Therefore, 36 is seen as ‘double Chai‘ or ‘Two Lives’.
Alternatively, you can donate any amount by clicking on any blue button on the right at the above link, and then write in the message space, ‘The Edward Kaplan Interfaith Lectureship Fund‘.
Tributes by Professor Edward K. Kaplan’s Colleagues
By Brandeis University Faculty Senate, read here.
By Provost Carol A. Fierke, Provost & Executive Vice President, Brandeis University, read here.
By Dr Arthur Green, the founding dean of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College, and Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University, read here.
By Susanne Jennings, Researcher at the Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge, UK, and Editor of the Merton Journal, read here.
By Professor Shaul Magid, Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, USA, read here.
By Professor Robert Emmet Meagher, Emeritus Professor of Humanities at Hampshire College, MA, USA, read here.
By Professor Elèna Mortara, Professor of Anglo-American Literature, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Italy, read here.
By Dr Paul M Pearson, Director and Archivist, Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, KY, USA, read here.
By Professor Christopher Pramuk, University Chair of Ignatian Thought and Imagination, Professor of Theology, Regis University, Denver, CO, USA, read here.
By Rabbi Or N. Rose, Founding Director of the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership, Hebrew College, Newton, MA, USA, read here.
By Rabbi David Saperstein, 4th United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Washington, DC, USA, read here.
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow (Z’’L), 1933–2025, the Founder of the Shalom Centre, read here.
By Professor Stephen Whitfield, the Max Richter Professor Emeritus of American Civilization, Brandeis University, read here.
By Professor Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University, & Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, read here.
A Recording of the Memorial Service featuring Prof Kaplan’s colleagues, including Professor Michael ‘Buzzy’ Fishbane, is available here.
Susanne Jennings honours Professor Edward K. Kaplan’s interfaith legacy with the Emerging Scholar Interfaith Prize. A chance meeting with Professor Edward K. Kaplan (Z”L) while on an International Thomas Merton Society retreat at Merton’s abbey in Kentucky (USA) led to an enduring friendship and the sharing of projects concerned with the promotion of interfaith dialogue and understanding. Susanne’s gift—the Emerging Scholar Interfaith Prize, launched alongside the annual Edward K. Kaplan Interfaith Lectureship, pays tribute to Professor Kaplan’s commitment to interfaith education. More information is available here.
Professor Edward K. Kaplan’s Photo Gallery
📷 Academic Photo Gallery 📷
📷 Family Photo Gallery 📷
Professor Edward K. Kaplan’s Publications
The List of Books in Chronological Order
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Mind, Heart, Soul, Edward K. Kaplan, The Jewish Publication Society, 2019.
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Une biographie, Edward K Kaplan (Author), John E. Jackson (Translator), Honore Champion, 2016.
Baudelaire et Le Spleen de Paris: L’esthétique, l’éthique et le religieux, French Edition, Edward K Kaplan, Classiques Garnier, 2015.
Michelet, Preface to the History of France (1869), with Introduction by Edward K. Kaplan, Saint Philip Street Press, 2013 and 2020.
Fanfarlo (The Art of the Novella) by Charles Baudelaire, Edward K. Kaplan (translator), Melville House, 2012.
Les Fleurs du Mal, by Charles Baudelaire, Edited and Notes by Edward K. Kaplan, Molière & Co., 2010.
La santità nelle parole: Abraham Joshua Heschel. Poetica, devozione, azione, (Italian Edition) by Edward K. Kaplan, Giannini Editore, 2009.
Pushing the Boundaries: Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Centenary Conference organiser and volume editor, Edward K. Kaplan, Brandeis University, March 11-12, 2007, Modern Judaism, volume 29, Number 1, February, 2009.
Abraham Heschel: (1907-1972). Un prophète pour notre temps, French Edition, Edward Kaplan (Author), Albin Michel, 2008.
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness, by Edward K. Kaplan and Samuel H. Dresner, Yale University Press, First edition, 1998, Finalist of the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Scholarship. Second edition in 2007.
Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972, Edward K. Kaplan (Author), Yale University Press, 2007, Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for American Jewish Studies. Second printing in 2008.
The Ineffable Name of God: Man, Poems in Yiddish and English by Abraham Joshua Heschel, translated from Yiddish by Morton M. Leifman, Introduction by Edward K. Kaplan, Continuum, 2005.
Abraham J Heschel: un tsaddiq dans la cite, Preface by Edward K. Kaplan. Gérard Rabinivitch, editor. Alliance Israélite Universelle – Les Éditions du NADIR. 2004.
Merton and Judaism: Holiness in Words – Recognition, Repentance and Renewal, Edward K. Kaplan, Beatrice Bruteau (Editor), Terrence A. Taylor (Preface), Victor A. Kramer (Foreword), 2003.
La Sanitaté en Paroles: Abraham Heschel piété, poétique, action, By Edward K. Kaplan (Author), translated into French by Paul Kessler, Les Éditions du CERF, 1999.
The Parisian Prowler: Le Spleen de Paris, Petits Poemes en Prose, by Charles Baudelaire Translated by Edward K. Kaplan, University of Georgia Press, 1989. Second edition in 1997with a new preface. Winner of the Louis Gantière Prize–National Prize for the Best Translation.
Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, Steven T. Katz (Editor), Chapter on Heschel by Edward K. Kaplan,B’nai B’rith Books, 1993.
Baudelaire’s Prose Poems: The Esthetic, the Ethical, and the Religious in the Parisian Prowler, Edward K. Kaplan (Author), University of Georgia Press, 1990.
Mother Death: The Journal of Jules Michelet, 1815-1850 (English and French Edition), Jules Michelet (Author), Edward Kaplan (Translator and Editor), The University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.
Michelet’s Poetic Vision: A Romantic Philosophy of Nature, Man, and Woman, Edward K. Kaplan (Author), University of Massachusetts Press. 1977.
Kivie Kaplan: A Legend in his Own Time, UAHC: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1976.
This book is In Memoriam of Kivie Kaplan, Edward’s Father, a Jewish industrialist deeply involved in the Jewish Social Action and in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. He served as president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1966 until his death in 1975.
