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, of Mamaroneck died when the 1946 single-engine
Aeronca 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.
Panken led the college’s four campuses in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York and Jerusalem.
“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.
