The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education works to enhance Jewish day school education in North America. The partnership posts an extensive list of organizations also dedicated to that cause. Amy Katz is executive director.

Jonathan Bloom is co-holder of the Norma Jean Calderwood Chair of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College and of the Hamad bin Khalifa Chair in Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. The author of many books on the history of Islamic art and architecture and the history of paper, he teaches courses on Islamic art, […]

Sheila Blair is co-holder of the Norma Jean Calderwood Chair of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College’s fine arts department and the Hamad bin Khalifa Chair in Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her expertise includes Islamic art, especially of Iran and Central Asia, art and architecture produced under the Mongols, and calligraphy and books.

Nasser Rabbat is Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture in the history, theory and criticism section of the architecture department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is avidly interested in culture and its historical manifestations in architecture. His field is Islamic architectural history, and he is immersed in the history, languages and culture of the Islamic […]

Read an April 24, 2013, column on CNN’s website about the Boston marathon bombing and how terrorist acts are quickly and inaccurately categorized as “Muslim extremism.”

Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Mass., has programs in Jewish studies, Jewish education, transdenominational rabbinic ordination for both men and women, cantor education and Mekorot (Hebrew language and Jewish texts). It also maintains Prozdor, a Jewish high school. Rabbi Daniel Lehmann is the college’s president.

Brandeis University is a private, nonsectarian Jewish university in Waltham, Mass. It was founded in 1948 as a university for Jews rejected by Ivy League schools because of quotas. Fred Lawrence is president.

Rabbi Toba Spitzer is president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the first openly gay woman to become its leader. She is the head rabbi at Congregation Dorshei Tzedek in West Newton, Mass.

Gloria Ascher is an associate professor of German at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., and the only American professor who offers regular college courses in modern Ladino.