Celia M. Deutsch is an American

religious sister A religious sister (abbreviated ''Sr.'' or Sist.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to pr ...

, academic, educator, writer, and

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

scholar. She is a professor at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

and serves on the

Christian Scholars Group The Christian Scholars Group is group of about 20 Christian scholars, theologians, historians and clergy from various Christian denominations which works to "develop more adequate Christian theologies of the church's relationship to Judaism and t ...

on Christian-Jewish Relations.

Personal life

Deutsch was raised in the

Roman Catholic faith The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

of her mother, although her father was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. She did not know her father was Jewish until she asked him a question one day and he told her: "I wasn't baptized. I'm a Jew and Jews don't

baptize Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation and Adoption ...

their children". After reading an article about the Sisters of Notre Dame of Sion, she paid them a visit in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. She entered the order at the end of that year, after graduating from high school.

Affiliations

Deutsch is active in numerous professional organizations and is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Group. She also serves as a consultant to the Interfaith Center of New York and is a member Neighbor to Neighbor (Jews, Christians, Muslims collaborating in the Flatbush/

Midwood Midwood is a neighborhood in the south-central part of the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded on the north by the Bay Ridge Branch tracks just above Avenue I and by the Brooklyn College campus of the City ...

neighborhood of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. She has worked and lectured in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

Writings

* Deutsch, Sister Celia M., ''Lady Wisdom, Jesus, and the Sages: Metaphor and Social Context in Matthew's Gospel'' (Trinity Press, 1996)

References

External links

''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'' excerpts

Women of God; ''The Atlantic'' (January 2002)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsch, Celia Living people American religious writers 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns Barnard College faculty Roman Catholic biblical scholars Writers from New York (state) American people of Jewish descent Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Female biblical scholars 21st-century American Roman Catholic nuns