Rabbi Panken
WAWAYANDA – The pilot of a single-engine plane killed when the
plane he was flying crashed near Randall Airport in Wawayanda Saturday
morning was a rabbi and president of Hebrew Union College, the college
announced.
Rabbi Aaron Panken, 53, died when the 1946 Aeronca plane crashed nose
first into a wooded area in Wawayanda. His passenger, Frank Reiss, 65,
a flight instructor, was hospitalized with injuries.
Investigators have not said what may have caused the plane to crash. (See
our earlier story.)
Panken led the college’s four campuses in Cincinnati, Jerusalem,
Los Angeles and in New York.
“Rabbi Panken was a distinguished rabbi and scholar, dedicated teacher,
and exemplary leader of the Reform Movement for nearly three decades,”
a college statement read.
He was elected president of the college by its board of governors in July
2013 with his appointment effective on January 1, 2014.
At his inaugural convocation, Panken said Reform Judaism “has always
symbolized what I consider to be the best of Judaism – firmly rooted
in our tradition, yet egalitarian, inclusive of patrilineal Jews and intermarried
families, welcoming to the LGBT community, politically active, and respectful
of other faiths and ideologies.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that tributes appeared on Twitter
when the news of Panken’s death spread with Israel’s consul
general in New York, Dani Dayan, saying the rabbi was “a great thinker”
and his death was “a huge loss for the entire Jewish people.”
Dan Shapiro, the former US ambassador to Israel remembered Panken as a
“brilliant Jewish leader, an incredible mensch and a dear friend,”
the JTA reported.
