Beloved University of Iowa religious studies professor Jay Holstein dies at 87

IOWA CITY — Students in University of Iowa professor Jay Holstein’s courses knew not to sit in the aisle, pull out a sandwich, keep their phone ringer on or doze off.

They knew that Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” wasn’t about a retired police officer hunting androids and that Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and The Sea” wasn’t about fishing on a skiff.

And they knew that when they walked out of one of Holstein’s iconic courses from a Van Allen Hall auditorium packed with students of all ages and majors, they would never see the world the same.

“I will always struggle to convey to the world how important Jay was to my life — and continues to be,” UI alum and author Daniel Kraus wrote as a condolence upon learning of Holstein’s passing. “He taught me not only *how* to think more critically and expansively about art and religion and life, but *why* to do it.”

Legendary UI religious studies professor Jay Allen Holstein died Nov. 14, 2025 following a brief illness. He was 87.

“It grieves me greatly that Jay Holstein is gone,” wrote Kraus, who in 2010 directed the documentary “Professor” about Holstein. “But by the same token, I feel electric with hope. Because Jay Holstein cannot possibly ever be gone. He is inside every student he ever taught.”

Philosophical mind

Holstein was born in Philadelphia in 1938 and graduated cum laude with distinction in philosophy from Temple University in Philadelphia before moving to New York City for Hebrew Union College, where he earned a B. H. L, a M.A., and was ordained as a rabbi.

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He went on to get his doctorate from Hebrew Union College before arriving in 1970 on the UI campus in Iowa City — where he spent his entire 52-plus-year academic career inspiring, motivating, and sometimes angering the estimated 60,000 students he reached.

“He just had that kind of philosophical mind and artistic mind where he wanted to uncover truths about human life, or get students to ask questions about their meaning in life, or how to deal with some of the difficulties in life,” religious studies professor Diana Fritz Cates said. “It almost feels to me like he wanted to sometimes jolt people out of their complacency, to start asking more philosophical existential questions.

“And I think that many students appreciated that, and that's why they kept coming back.”

Holstein started his UI tenure as an assistant professor of Judaic Studies and in 1982 was appointed to serve as the first J.J. Mallon Chair of Judaic Studies. In 2007, Holstein was appointed the J. J. Mallon Teaching Chair of Judaic Studies — and over the decades not only taught Hebrew Bible-type courses like Judeo-Christian Tradition but also more society-centered classes on how religion and God and humanity are intertwined in art and everyday life.

“Quest for Human Destiny” was among Holstein’s most popular — spawning a Quest II. He also taught courses on “The Bible and the Holocaust,” “The Bible in Film,” and “The Bible and the Sacrifice of Animals.”

‘A great storyteller’

Every semester, Holstein attracted thousands of students to Macbride and Van Allen halls — often leaving many stuck on long waiting lists that rarely offered any openings.

“I think the main element of his teaching was storytelling,” Cates said. “And he was a great storyteller, and he delivered the stories beautifully, and the stories were relatable.”

Holstein’s stories would start someplace simple and surface-level and weave in more complex ideas and elements as they went — leaving students not only thinking but feeling more deeply.

“One of the elements was getting people's attention and holding it for a long time,” Cates said. “And I think that he believed that in order to do that, he needed to do some performing, and that included something a little bit like stand-up comedy.”

Sometimes Holstein would yell at students for reading the newspaper in class. He’d demand to know what kind of sandwich a person was eating or grill them on the meaning of their name. He wasn’t afraid to order a student to leave class for talking back or showing disrespect.

“He would swear or say outrageous things,” she said. “I believe he just felt that was really important for getting people's attention and kind of waking them up so that he could deliver his teaching moment. And I think a lot of students took these classes because they were very entertained by them.”

His gift for delivering a compelling message had the university asking him every fall to talk to freshmen.

“And part of what he was trying to do there was ask, ‘What are you people here for? What are you going to do the next?’” Cates said. “He was very intense and very serious about them not wasting a single moment. And I think that kind of intensity, it spoke to a lot of students of that generation. I think the irreverence of it spoke to them.”

He also questioned authority — sometimes sparking controversy and putting him in the crosshairs of protesters and higher-ups.

“I just remember it was a conservative Christian group,” she said of one of the protests. “They were offended by his way of reading scripture, which is also the Hebrew Bible.”

‘A Golden Legacy’

Part of Holstein’s theology — and teaching — involved doubt, questions, even irreverence.

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“In some ways it made them uncomfortable,” Cates said about his students. “But in some ways, it was kind of intriguing. Because they had been taught don't doubt, don't question, just believe.”

Holstein’s commitment to thought, to inquiry, to interrogation and the art of imparting life-changing messages through college-auditorium lectures — even if it meant taking risks and challenging authority — earned him in 2014 the President and Provost's Award for Teaching Excellence.

“While I was chair, he would often forward me emails that he got from students who just remembered something he said or thought of him, maybe even 10 years later, and they would send him a little email thank you,” she said. “And it was after I had seen maybe 20 of these in one semester that I realized, whatever it is, there’s something really important going on here. So that's when I nominated him for the provost award.”

Holstein, she said, “was very very excited to be nominated for that.”

In 2020, Holstein also was honored for 50 years of teaching with a program entitled "Jay Holstein: A Golden Legacy of Learning.”

“To me, that was really important to acknowledge all of his contributions and how much he meant to so many students, and to have the university recognize that,” Cates said.

Holstein officially retired in 2022 but continued teaching online courses as an emeritus professor.

But even today, when Cates runs into former UI students and says she works in the religious studies department, many ask her about Holstein.

“And so I always ask them, what was it you found so wonderful about his teaching?” she said. “And sometimes people will say they don't remember anything he actually taught. They just remember the experience — being in that huge crowd of people and being interested and intrigued during that hour.”

And some people do remember — reporting keeping for decades the detailed notes they took in Holstein’s classes 20 or 30 years ago.

“No one person influenced my ability to think critically more than Dr. Jay Holstein. He read my papers, told me I was a talented writer, but that my arguments stunk. ‘Go to med school,’ he said,” David Ross, MD, wrote as a condolence to Holstein. “He also performed our marriage ceremony. I last emailed him a few months ago, thanking him for changing my life, and the lives of so many others for the better. In the last few days I've watched every bit of footage of him on the internet, and shed some tears.

“I hope he haunts the hell out of McBride Hall forever.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com