Brandeis remembers Richard Siegel, MA’72

The Brandeis University community is remembering the life of Richard Siegel, MA’72, who died on Thursday, July 12, in Los Angeles.

A transformative figure in the Jewish world, Siegel was known for his work and advocacy in strengthening professional education, enhancing Jewish culture and advancing contemporary Jewish identity formation.

He was director emeritus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management.

At Brandeis, he earned a master’s in contemporary Jewish studies, now part of the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program.

Siegel’s master’s thesis at Brandeis, “A Theoretical Construct for a Jewish Whole Earth Catalog,” was subsequently developed into the 1973 book “The Jewish Catalog,” published by JPS, which became a best-selling guide to the Jewish counterculture of the 1960s.

Siegel also wrote “The Jewish Almanac” (Bantam Books, 1981) and “The Writer in the Jewish Community: An Israel-North America Dialogue” (Associated University Press, 1993).

In 2002, Brandeis awarded Siegel the Bernard Reisman Award for Excellence in Jewish Communal Service.