Program for Jewish Civilization

Ori Z. Soltes is Goldman Professorial Lecturer in Theology and Fine Arts at Georgetown University, and former Director and Curator of the B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, where he curated over 80 exhibitions. He has taught and lectured in 23 other universities and museums throughout the country, on subjects ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to The Body in Ancient Art. Both before and since his years as a museum Director, he has guest-curated exhibitions across the United States and overseas.

Professor Soltes was educated in Classics and Philosophy at Haverford College, in Classics at Princeton University and The Johns Hopkins University and in Interdisciplinary Studies at Union University. He is the author of over 150 articles, exhibition catalogues, essays and books on a wide range of topics, and the writer and narrator of over 30 documentary videos. His most recent books are Our Sacred Signs: How Christian, Jewish and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Source, (Westview Press, 2005), The Ashen Rainbow: Essays on the Arts and the Holocaust, (Bartleby Press, 2006), Searching for Oneness: Mysticism in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Traditions (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), Untangling the Tangled Web: Why the Middle East is a Mess (Bartleby Press, 2009).