Dr. Yaacov Hanoka, an innovator in green technology and photovoltaic and solar energy, as well as a pioneer in Jewish outreach on campus, passed away Sunday, May 8, 2011. He was 75.

Born to a Greek Jewish family in Highland Park, NJ, Hanoka was raised in a home imbued with the warmth of the Sephardic Jewish tradition. Graduating from Rutgers University, Yaacov  began pursuing a PhD in solid state physics at Penn State.

In the fall semester of 1961, the doctoral candidate participated in an event that would impact the trajectory of his life. A group of Yeshivah students from Brooklyn came to Penn State to arrange a Shabbaton in conjunction with the local Hillel. Yaacov was among hundreds of students who attended the Hillel’s Friday night services and Shabbat meal. Returning again Shabbat day, Yaacov stayed with the young rabbis until the end of Shabbat. Before leaving the university, the group broke out in spontaneous Chasidic song and dance.

Years later Yaacov recalled that it was that experience—watching the rabbinical students dance—more than any other particular conversation or event over the course of the Shabbat, that piqued his interest in his Jewish heritage. Despite the utter foreignness of the six rabbis, their warmth and energy returned to his mind time and again over the coming week, driving him to the point of distraction in his studies. Yaacov soon felt compelled to learn more about the Chasidim and their lifestyle.

Two weeks later he joined some 15 other students on a group trip to Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, in private audience, Yaacov expressed his desire to enroll in the yeshivah. The Rebbe supported this decision, suggesting the Central Lubavitcher Yeshivah in Crown Heights.

At the time, the challenges facing a would-be returnee to Judaism were daunting. Yeshivah classes were conducted exclusively in Yiddish, the language through which most students conversed among themselves. There were few books available in English, and no infrastructure in the school to help new students acclimate to the strictures of Talmudic study. When meeting with the Rebbe, the faculty of the yeshivah expressed their apprehension about accepting Yaacov. The Rebbe maintained that despite the difficulties, they accept Yaacov.

Rabbi Shmuel Lew, today one of the senior Chabad emissaries to London and one of the six yeshivah students to visit Penn State at that Shabbaton, helped him acclimate to Yeshivah life. He recalls that the Rebbe told the yeshivah faculty that Yaacov was “the start of a new trend of returnees to Judaism,” one of “thousands” that would enroll in yeshivas in the coming years.

In addition to his studies in yeshivah, Yaacov was involved in developing programming for Jewish college students. Together with Lew, he helped launch a weekend “Encounter with Chabad’ program” that continues to this day. In what would be a decade of spiritual seekers looking for new horizons of expression, the Encounter allowed students the opportunity to visit the Chabad community in Brooklyn and gain a first-hand impression of traditional Jewish life. Yaacov would remain actively involved in the Encounter program for the next for 30 years.

Yaacov would later recount many of his experiences to Jewish Educational Media’s ‘My Encounter’ initiative, an oral history project documenting the life of the Rebbe and the development of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He recalled the special interest the Rebbe took in even the most basic aspects of his life. Worried about Yaacov’s grueling and at times erratic method of study and the toll it took on his health, the Rebbe reminded him that “Chasidism is not asceticism,” advising him to create a personal schedule that would allow him to manage a wholesome lifestyle.

Concerning the Encounter program, the Rebbe told Yaacov that he must “feel like a pioneer.” Yaacov demurred. It “just felt like something I had to do," he said simply.

At the end of his year in yeshivah, Yaacov wanted to become a Hillel rabbi on campus. The Rebbe instead instructed him to return to university and finish his doctorate. He would “do more for Judaism with three initials after [his] name,” the Rebbe told him.

Time and again the Rebbe pushed Yaacov to reach out to other scientists, using his background and experiences to help spread the message of strengthening Jewish identity. After marriage to his wife Bina, his partner in life until her passing in 2005, the couple expressed interest in moving to Israel.  The Rebbe advised them to remain in America where Yaacov could finish his studies.

Dr. Hanoka worked at Mobil Solar Energy Corporation, the solar power division of Mobil Corporation. When the company was sold off, instead of retiring, he launched his own start-up alternative energy company: Evergreen Solar.

Despite playing an active role in his field—he held 56 patents in solar energy—learning  Torah and strengthening Jewish identity remained his greatest cause.

His son, Rabbi Chaim Hanoka, director of Chabad of Pasadena, California, relates the special emphasis his father put on Jewish involvement, especially the role of Chabad emissaries around the world.

“People would ask us as children if we planned on entering the sciences like our father,” Hanoka recalls. “But my father’s greatest desire was for us to become Shluchim.”

Despite ailing health, Yaacov began work on an book that would address the concordance of traditional Jewish thought and modern scientific inquiries. Unapologetic in its nature, Yaacov felt that eternal message of the Torah  was critical, and was unconcerned about the possible risk of scorn from his scientific colleagues.

He is survived by his mother, Mrs. Miriam Hanoka, his sistrs Susan Halpern, Beverly Hanoka-Spool, Elenor Seel, his wife, Mrs. Rita Herman-Hanoka, and children, Rabbi Chaim Hanoka, Chabad emissary to Pasadena, CA, Gitty Bronstein Brooklyn, NY, Rabbi Yitzchok Hanoka, Brooklyn, NY, Miriam Friedman, Chabad emissary to Birmingham, AL, and Chani Pinson, Chabad emissary to Pasadena, CA.