Sharon Feiman-Nemser is a professor of Jewish education at Brandeis University and director of the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. She says Jews need to find ways to help unaffiliated and disaffected Jews discover meaning in the faith. A major challenge, she says, will be to ascertain ways to make this ancient faith […]

Sylvia Barack Fishman is a professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and co-director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, which focuses on women in contemporary Judaism. She is the author of numerous books, including Jewish Life and American Culture (SUNY Series in American Jewish Society in the 1990s) and The Way Into the Varieties […]

Samuel Freedman is a journalism professor at Columbia University whose books include Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry. He can comment about rifts between different Jewish groups and denominations.

Ari Goldman is a journalism professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. He is a former religion reporter for The New York Times and is the author of several books on Jews and Judaism, including Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today and Living a Year of Kaddish. He can discuss major issues […]

Steven M. Cohen is a research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a senior consultant to Synagogue 3000. He is one of the authors of the 2007 National Spiritual Communities Study and can discuss its findings on independent minyanim and havurot.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) of America is an organization that works to promote Hinduism among transplanted Hindis and to educate others about the religion. Its president is Abhaya Asthana. It is based in Houston, Tex.

The Hindu Students Council describes itself as “an international forum that provides opportunities to learn about Hindu heritage through various activities, events and projects” on college campuses in the United States and abroad.

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in Oxford, England, is one of the largest and most comprehensive centers for the study of Hinduism in the West.

The Hindu University of America in Orlando, Fla., is the only university in the West entirely dedicated to the study of all things Hindu.