PersonJewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Jeffrey Hoffman

Jeffrey A. Hoffman is a former NASA astronaut who performed the first documented Torah reading in space during STS-75 in 1996.

United States

Official NASA portrait of astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman

NASAWikimedia CommonsPublic domain

Biography

Jeffrey A. Hoffman was born on 2 November 1944 in Brooklyn, New York. He flew five Space Shuttle missions between 1985 and 1996, participated in the first Hubble servicing mission and completed four spacewalks. Hoffman also became a central figure in the cultural history of Jews in space by taking Jewish ritual objects into orbit and performing the first Torah reading outside Earth.

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Records held by Jeffrey Hoffman

Jeffrey Hoffman reading from the Torah aboard Space Shuttle Columbia

JWR VerifiedFounding Record

Space · Human SpaceflightFirst

First Torah Reading in Space

Record holder

Jeffrey Hoffman

Record value

2 March 1996

On 2 March 1996, during Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-75, Jewish-American astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman read from a small Torah scroll while orbiting Earth. The scroll had been arranged through his Houston Jewish community and was light enough to fly aboard the Shuttle. Hoffman read from Genesis on Shabbat, creating a documented milestone in Jewish religious life beyond Earth. The act became the centerpiece of the later Space Torah Project, which preserved Hoffman's footage, photographs and the story of the congregation that helped make the flight possible.

Country represented: United States
Achievement location: Earth orbit, United States
Achievement date: 2 March 1996

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