Gary G. Porton is a professor of religious studies, history and literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches courses in American Judaism, Jewish customs and ceremonies and the Holocaust.

Deborah Dash Moore is director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She teaches a course in American Jewish history and is an expert on women in Reconstructionist Judaism. Her specialty is 20th-century Jewish urban history.

May 12, 2013, The Washington Post article about Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) trying to court conservative evangelical voters partially through a strong stance in support of Israel.

Anthony Michels is an associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches a course called “The American Jewish Experience: From Shtetl to Suburb.”

Read the U.S. Census Bureau’s state facts, including age and race, and compare them to national averages.

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.

May 24, 2013, The New York Times article about famous evangelical conservative Christians who converted from Judaism and the innate friction between the two groups over their support of the State of Israel.

The Economic Research Service offers state profiles that include income and poverty rates for rural and urban dwellers.

Read a report called “Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences,” posted on the website of the Social Science Research Council. It examines issues of race and racism revealed by Katrina, and contains the links to writings on the hurricane by more than 35 academics.