Current Research

Walter R. Isaac, Ph.D., Temple University, Lecturer of Africana Studies, is a scholar, public intellectual and African American rabbi of Palestinian descent. He has for many years worked as a mentor and direct advocate for LGBTQ teens, school-age boys of color, Jewish youth and victims of urban violence. He is a specialist in intercultural student affairs and university campus dialogue, particularly on issues of systemic racism, sex/gender discrimination, and the politics of Israel/Palestine.

A Yale University graduate, Rabbi Isaac was formerly a Research Fellow in Africana Studies at Brown University, as well as the Program Director for Temple University’s Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought. His writings all stem from womanist philosophical approaches to the intersection of Africana studies and global Jewish studies. His research has recently focused on the theoretical and historical development of modern democracy from among American Hebrew communities of color.  Before joining the department of Africana Studies, Rabbi Isaac co-directed a $250k NEH grant-funded project on Gullah/Geechee contributions to American democracy. He is a member of many professional organizations and the current President of the Afro-Jewish Studies Association. Currently he is completing a two-part monograph on the intersection of German-Jewish phenomenologist Max Scheler’s objective realism with Martin L. King Jr.’s philosophy of humanistic science.

Some of Dr. Isaac’s many articles and monographs can be found in publications such as Contending Modernities, Violence in American Society, the Journal of the Middle East and Africa, Black Existentialism, and a seminal article on Afro-Jewish Studies in the Blackwell Companion to African-American Studies.