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Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Chelst is chair of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He received rabbinic ordination in 1972 from Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in New York. While there, he studied under Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the world's leading Talmudic scholar and Jewish philosopher of that generation as well as Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein whose writing integrates Jewish sources and English literature. Dr. Chelst received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1975 in the field of operations research, applying mathematical concepts to police patrol deployment. He is a nationally recognized researcher in the application of mathematical models to the management of police, fire and EMS. His newest research area focuses on globalization and decision and risk analysis.
Rabbi Chelst has taught adult Bible classes for more than two decades. It was during these classes that he first began to see and develop parallels and contrasts between Israelite and African-American slavery. Initially, he drew on his knowledge of victimization studies in the field of criminal justice and classical texts of American slavery, such as Frederick Douglass' autobiography. Through the efforts of Dave Tanzman and Jules Cohan, he received a substantial grant to fund a black studies researcher, Kathryn Beard, who helped him explore and understand many of the social, political, historical, economic, and anthropological issues associated with the events and experiences of African-American slavery and emancipation. EXODUS AND EMANCIPATION represents the culmination of years of effort to integrate the two narratives.
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