1963, BD, Harvard Divinity School; 1969, PhD, Harvard Univ.; DHL, CUNY; Dlitt, AAU. Founder and first professor of the Harvard Univ. Dept of African and Afro-American Studies, created in 1969. Has taught at Hebrew Univ., Princeton Univ., Univ. of Pennsylvania, Bard College, and other institutions of higher learning. Director, Institute of Semitic Studies, Princeton, NJ. Chair of the Board, Horn of Africa Peace and Development Committee. President-Emeritus, Yemenite Jewish Federation of America. Author of scholarly works about the Late Second Temple period and Classical Ethiopic and Yemenite Jewish religious literature. Chairman, Council of Ethiopian National Elders. Lectures widely on religion and warfare, and religion and hate. Recipient of honours: Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding 2002 Peacemaker in Action Award; honorary degrees from John J. College of CUNY and Addis Ababa Univ., Ethiopia; NEH Fellowship.