Aaron Hahn Tapper was born and raised in Philadelphia. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Theology and Religious Studies Department of the University of San Francisco, holding the Swig Chair of Judaic Studies, and is the founding Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, the first academic program in the country formally linking these two fields. Prior to this appointment he was on the faculty of the Religious Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. He previously lived in the Middle East for five years—four years in Jerusalem and one year in Cairo—and traveled extensively in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Syria. Aaron received a BA from the Johns Hopkins University, majoring in Psychology, a Master's degree from Harvard Divinity School, focusing on World Religions, and a PhD in Comparative Religions from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His doctoral dissertation, "From Gaza to the Golan: Religious Nonviolence, Power, and the Politics of Interpretation", explores the relationship between the socio-political context of Israel and Palestine, religious law, and power. His interdisciplinary research interests are comparative religions, the history of religions, the interplay between politics and religion, Judaism, Islam, nonviolence, and the relationship between power and religious authority. Since 1990 Aaron has been involved in Jewish education, shifting his focus towards Jewish-Arab, Jewish-Muslim, and Israeli-Palestinian education in 1998. Aaron is also a Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Transformative Education.