Rabbi Laura Geller is the principal rabbi at Temple Emanuel, one of the largest Reform synagogues in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was among the first class of women rabbis to be ordained in the Reform movement.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founder of IKAR, a Los Angeles-based progressive Jewish community focused sharply on social justice.

Gallia Porat is a lecturer in modern and biblical Hebrew at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. She has developed her own technique for teaching Hebrew to teenagers and adults. She has also taught Hebrew to new immigrants to Israel.

Gilbert Reyes is associate dean of the school of psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara. His focus is on crisis intervention and psychological health after disasters.

Salvatore R. Maddi is a professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine. He is the co-author of Resilience at Work: How to Succeed No Matter What Life Throws at You (Amacom, 2004) and has studied the quality of “personality hardiness” that allows some people to thrive even in stressful circumstances, such as natural […]

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

David N. Myers is a history professor and director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies in Los Angeles. He is at work on a major history of the Jews of Los Angeles.

Yechiel Shalom Goldberg teaches in the Jewish studies program at California State University, Long Beach, where he specializes in the study of Jewish mysticism.

Carol Edelman is an associate professor in sociology and social work at California State University, Chico. Part of her research and teaching focuses on Jewish response to the Holocaust and to 20th-century genocide.