Rabbi Ozer “Tony” Glickman, a member of the rabbinical faculty at Yeshiva University who earlier had a successful career in the business world, died suddenly on March 19. A resident of Teaneck, N.J., he was 67.
A rosh yeshiva in YU’s Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon Theological Seminary since 2000, he had served as vice president of strategic risk management at Canada’s Imperial Bank of Commerce.
“Rabbi Ozer Glickman zt”l was an intellectual giant who was steeped in Torah knowledge and well versed in multiple disciplines,” said Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, in a written statement. “He excelled at bringing Jewish values to bear on the challenges and opportunities of Jewish living in contemporary society. He was wholly devoted to the religious and personal well-being of his students. His loss is a tragedy for his family, Yeshiva University, and the entire Jewish people.”
“He was very open, very willing to meet with students, committed to social justice,” said Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier, a colleague at the University’s Isaac Breuer College of Hebraic Studies. “He was always very friendly … he had a wicked sense of humor.”
Rabbi Glickman frequently posted on Facebook on a wide variety of topics, including European soccer, the affordability of Jewish day schools and business ethics, Rabbi Zuckier said. “The breadth of his interest was astounding — halacha … risk management … Arsenal soccer … anti-Scientism polemics, legal theory,” Rabbi Zuckier wrote last week in a Facebook message. “When we last spoke, he was catching me up about two projects he was working on: writing a book polemicizing against scientism (under contract with Oxford University Press) and establishing a center for business ethics and Judaism.”
Rabbi Glickman, an active member of Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, had taught Talmud and Jewish law to students in the school’s ordination program since 2000. Earlier, he was a founding faculty member of the Institute of Traditional Judaism, where he taught for several years, and was a devoted student of Rabbi David Weiss Halivni, according to Rabbi Ronald Price, who served as executive director of the institute. At Yeshiva University, Rabbi Glickman taught halacha and American legal theory in the University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and business and Jewish law courses at YU’s Sy Syms School of Business.
Ordained by Yeshiva University, he studied at Yeshivat Merkaz ha-Rav in Israel and received a separate semicha from rabbis there.
Rabbi Glickman received his B.A. degree in philosophy from Columbia University and an MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He also studied philosophy and religion at the University of Toronto. Rabbi Glickman is survived by his wife, Ilana, six children and three grandchildren.
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