A nine-month residency at St. Joseph House, a Catholic Worker residence, provided the intellectual foundation for Marc H. Ellis’s early academic output. This immersion into the Catholic Worker Movement following a 1974 meeting with Dorothy Day informed his master’s thesis and subsequent publication, shaping a career centered on liberation theology, Jewish studies, and critiques of political power structures.
Academic Formation and Early Research
Born in Miami in 1952, Ellis earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Florida State University. During his time there, he studied under Richard Rubenstein and the Catholic Worker Movement historian William Miller. In 1980, he completed his doctorate in contemporary American Social and Religious Thought at Marquette University. Following his doctoral work, he joined the faculty of the Maryknoll School of Theology in New York, where he directed the M.A. program at the Maryknoll Institute for Justice and Peace and achieved the rank of full professor in 1988.
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In 1998, Ellis was appointed professor of American and Jewish studies at Baylor University, subsequently founding the school's Center for American and Jewish Studies. His tenure in Waco, Texas, was marked by friction with the local Jewish community, which criticized his stance on Israeli-Palestinian relations. His 2012 departure from the institution became a subject of controversy, with supporters such as Cornel West, Rosemary Ruether, and Desmond Tutu alleging that the university administration targeted him for his political views. Baylor officials cited privacy rule violations as the cause for their investigation, a claim Ellis denied as selective enforcement.
The Jewish Prophetic Framework
Ellis developed the concept of the "Jewish prophetic" as a moral and religious framework that prioritized the pursuit of justice over territorial claims. He argued that the prophetic tradition was the true indigenous element of Jewish history, essential to diasporic identity. His writings explicitly challenged what he termed "Empire Judaism," a critique of Zionism he linked to historical theological categories of power. He maintained that Jewish liberation remained inextricably tied to the freedom and self-determination of the Palestinian people.
International Engagement and Later Career
Beyond his institutional roles at Baylor and visiting positions at Harvard University’s Center for the Study of World Religions and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Ellis contributed to global academic discourse. He served as a visiting professor at the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. In 2018, the Perkins School of Theology hosted a Festschrift in his honor, later compiled into a 2021 collection of scholarly essays. Ellis died on June 8, 2024, at the age of 71 following a long illness.
Fast facts
- Born: 1952, Miami
- Died: June 8, 2024
- Education: Florida State University; Marquette University
- Key Affiliations: Maryknoll School of Theology; Baylor University; Harvard University
- Research Fields: Jewish studies; liberation theology; Islamic–Jewish relations
- Notable Concept: The Jewish prophetic
Questions readers ask
What was the central argument of Ellis’s Jewish prophetic framework?
He argued that the prophetic tradition, rooted in the Hebrew Bible, was the foundation of diasporic Jewish life and a moral obligation to pursue justice.
Did Ellis maintain ties to organized Judaism during his career?
He belonged to the anti-Zionist synagogue Tzedek Chicago later in his life.
Achievements
- Held posts at Harvard University and Florida State University
- Fields: Jewish studies, comparison of Judaism and Christianity and Islamic–Jewish relations
