James Russell is spokesman for Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy and the author of Breach of Faith: American Churches and the Immigration Crisis, which decries “out-of-control immigration” and examines “why American churches do so much to further an agenda so obviously harmful to the well being of Middle Americans.” He is based in White Plains, […]

John Efron is a professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of California-Berkeley. His focus is on the cultural and intellectual history of modern Judaism. He wrote Medicine and the German Jews: A History (Yale University Press, Spring 2001) and The Jews: A History, with Matthias Lehmann and Steven Weitzman (Prentice Hall, 2009), among others.

Arnold M. Eisen is a religion professor at Stanford University in California. He co-wrote the book The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America (Indiana University Press, 2000). The book looks at the results of surveys Eisen and his co-author conducted with American Jews. The book states that American Jews are less attached to Israel and […]

Linda Thal is co-director of the Yedidya Center for Jewish Spiritual Direction in California and co-director of Morei Derekh, a two-year, retreat-based distance program. She serves as a consultant to the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ Committee on Rabbinic Spirituality and did her doctoral dissertation on spiritual direction.

Rabbi Shefa Gold is director of the Center for Devotional Energy and Ecstatic Prayer in Jemez Springs, N.M. She teaches workshops and retreats on chanting, devotional healing, spiritual community building and meditation. Shefa combines her grounding in Judaism with a background in Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Native American spiritual traditions and says she returned to Judaism because […]

Adam Zachary Newton is interim director of Jewish studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is an expert on modern Jewish thought. He has published a number of books in the areas of Narrative Theory, American Studies, Contemporary Jewish Philosophy, and Comparative Literature. His focus is on modern Jewish thought and literature.

David Nelson is director of the Jewish Studies Program at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He is author of Judaism, Physics and God: Searching for Sacred Metaphors in a Post-Einstein World (Jewish Lights Pub, 2005).

Richard Golden is director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of North Texas in Denton.

Gregory Kaplan is the Anna Smith Fine assistant professor of Judaic studies at Rice University in Houston and faculty advisor for the University of Tennessee Hillel Jewish Student Center. He is an expert on modern Judaism.