Maurice L. Zigmond Papers

Rabbi Maurice L. Zigmond, or “Ziggy” as he was known to friends and colleagues, was born in Denver, Colorado on March 5, 1904. His parents, Joseph and Esther Zigmond, were Hungarian immigrants. In addition to Maurice, they had a daughter, Helen, and another son, Isador Jerome.

Rabbi Zigmond graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1925 and went on to study at Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained as a Rabbi in 1929. In 1941, he earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University, and later received an honorary D.D. (Doctor of Divinity) from Hebrew Union College. In addition, he was a member of both Phi Beta Kappa (an honorary scholastic society) and Sigma Xi (an honorary scientific society), and was a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association.

Although Rabbi Zigmond taught Anthropology at Yale from 1948-1961, he began his career as a counselor for Jewish college students in 1935, eventually establishing and directing several Hillels throughout his professional career. In 1941, he created the Hillel Foundations at both Yale and the University of Connecticut. From 1947-1968 he was the Hillel Director at Harvard and Radcliffe, and from 1950-1969, he was the New England Regional Director of B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations. In 1955, for one year, he served as the Director of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Zigmond was also a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and its Editorial Board; the Book Committee of the General Theological Library in Boston, Massachusetts; the Civic Unity Committee of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Regional Board of the World University Service.

In 1940 he married Kate (Levy); they had two sons. Rabbi Zigmond died at the age of 94 on June 12, 1998 in Belmont, Massachusetts.