Niagara Immigration Employment Council

Dr. Jack N. Lightstone is currently President and Vice-Chancellor of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. Dr. Lightstone officially took office on July 1, 2006 for a five-year term. He also holds an academic appointment as Professor of History in Brock’s Faculty of Humanities.

Prior to Brock, Dr. Lightstone spent 30 years at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. A longtime Professor of Religion at Concordia, he was Chair of his department (1979-85) and graduate program director for the MA in Judaic Studies and PhD in Religion. From 1989 to 1992, he served as Associate Vice-Rector, Academic (Research). He was Provost and Vice-Rector (Vice-President), from 1995 to 2004, and led the academic sector through an extensive, ongoing academic planning process and a difficult period of budget restrictions.

Dr. Lightstone received his BA from Carleton University in 1972, and went on to complete an MA (1974) and PhD (1977) at Brown University in Rhode Island. He was a Visiting Research Graduate Fellow at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1974-75. An expert on ancient and contemporary North American Judaism, he has written and lectured extensively. Dr. Lightstone remains an active scholar funded by external peer-reviewed grants.

He is the author of six books and is widely published in scholarly and professional journals. He is fluent in English, French and Hebrew. Dr. Lightstone has served on a broad range of external boards and organizations such as the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, the Canadian Jewish Congress, Quebec Region, the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and Fonds Québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC). Most recently, he was appointed to the Board of the Niagara Economic Development Corporation.

Dr. Lightstone was born and raised in Ottawa, Ont. He is married to Dorothy Markiewicz, PhD. They have two children.