Center for Religion and Civic Culture

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California has a principal focus on the study of religion and immigration and its various manifestations. Richard Flory is executive director, and Megan Sweas is communications director.

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John Efron

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.

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Arnold M. Eisen

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 […]

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Linda Thal

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.

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Shefa Gold

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 […]

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