Sayed M. Omran is an associate professor of Arabic language and culture at Villanova University in Villanova, Pa. He is an expert on Islam and Arabic culture. His publications include, as translator, Islam and Human Ideology.

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa., ordains rabbis in the Reconstructionist tradition of Judaism. It ordains both men and women. A page for journalists lists experts by topic. Eileen Fisher is assistant vice president for communications.

Gratz College is a transdenominational school in Melrose Park, Pa., that offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees. It also operates a Jewish Community High School. Jerry Kutnick is dean of academic affairs.

Michael Eric Dyson is Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (Basic Civitas Books, 2006).

David Ruderman is director of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also a professor of modern Jewish history. Contact 215-238-1290.

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. 

Gwynn Kessler is an associate professor of religion at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she teaches a course on Judaism and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer persons.

Marsha Bryan Edelman is an adjunct professor of music and education at Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa. She is the author of Discovering Jewish Music.

Beth Wenger is an associate professor of American Jewish history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America. She wrote the chapter titled “The Politics of Women’s Ordination: Jewish Law, Institutional Power and the Debate Over Women in the Rabbinate” in Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary.