Rabbi Morris Allen heads Beth Jacob Congregation, a Conservative congregation in Mendota Heights, Minn. Allen is behind a push to make kosher food meet certain ethical standards, such as paying workers a fair wage. The result, Magen Tzedek, or “justice certification,” is gaining ground in many Conservative synagogues and households. He blogs about keeping ethically kosher.

Rabbi Stephen Pearce leads Congregation Emanu-El, a Reform synagogue and San Francisco’s largest Jewish congregation.

Rabbi Mendel Lifshitz and his wife, Esther, direct Chabad Jewish Center of Idaho in Boise. The center is part of Chabad Lubavitch, a New York community of Hasidim.

Rabbi Daniel Fink leads Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel, a Reform congregation in Boise, Idaho. He is an expert on Jewish environmentalism.

Shaul Magid is a professor of Jewish studies and religious studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. Among his specialties are Jewish ethics, and contemporary conceptions of Jewish religiosity, renewal and fundamentalism.

Rabbi Jonathan Schick is an adjunct philosophy and Jewish studies professor at the University of North Texas in Denton. He is an expert on Jewish education and has served as headmaster of two Jewish prep schools. He writes a monthly ethics column.

David Patterson is a professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is an expert on the Holocaust and serves as an adviser to two U.S. Holocaust museums.

Jonathan Steinberg is a professor of modern European history at the University of Pennsylvania. One of his specialties is secular Judaism in Europe and the U.S. 

Mitchell Silver is a lecturer in philosophy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. He is the author of Respecting the Wicked Child: A Philosophy of Secular Jewish Identity and Education. He says the most important issue facing American Jews today is maintaining a shared identity despite branch affiliations and secularism.