Chiel, Samuel
CHIEL, SAMUEL
CHIEL, SAMUEL (1927– ), U.S. Conservative rabbi. Chiel was born in Taylor, Pennsylvania, and received his ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1952 and his Doctor of Divinity degree from the Seminary in 1977. He served as a chaplain in the U.S. Army (1952–54), rabbi of Temple Beth El, Quincy, Massachusetts (1954–56), and rabbi of the Malverne Jewish Center, Malverne, New York (1956–68), before becoming rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1968, where he remained for the rest of his career and was appointed rabbi emeritus in 1995. Chiel represented the *Anti-Defamation League in several interfaith initiatives, including the dialogue begun with the Polish Catholic Church in 1988 in Cracow, a joint pilgrimage to Israel and Rome with Cardinal Bernard Law in 1999, and the program Catholics and Jews Together: New Directions in Catholic-Jewish Dialogue. The adl honored him with the Abraham Joshua Heschel Interfaith Relations Award in 1992. In the field of Jewish education, he served as a member of the Chancellor's Cabinet of the Jewish Theological Seminary (1985–95) and director of the Rabbinic Institute of Boston's Hebrew College, which awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2000. He was also a member of the faculty of the Department of Theology at Boston College (1990–95). He served as chairman of the Rabbinical Assembly's Commission on Jewish Renewal and Commitment (1991–92) and was given the Jewish Theological Seminary's Rabbi Max Arzt Distinguished Rabbinic Service Award (1987). In 2001, Chiel received the Humanitarian Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice, the first time it was ever bestowed on a clergyman. He is the co-author with Henry Dreher of For Thou Art With Me: The Healing Power of Psalms (2000).
bibliography:
P.S. Nadell, Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook (1988).
[Bezalel Gordon (2nd ed.)]