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The late Daniel J. Elazar was the Founding Co-Director of "Jews and the American Public Square," and President of
the Center for Jewish Community Studies. A leading political scientist and specialist in the study
of federalism, political culture, and the Jewish political tradition, he was also founder and president of the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a major independent Israeli policy studies center
concerned with analyzing and solving the key problems facing Israel and world Jewry. Professor Elazar was recognized
as an expert on Jewish community organization worldwide, on the Jewish political tradition, and on
Israel's government and politics. He was the author or editor of more than
60 books and many other publications ranging from Community and Polity, the classic
in-depth study of the American Jewish Community, a four-volume series on
The Covenant Tradition in Politics, and several books exploring practical solutions
to the Israel-Palestinian conflict based on federal principles found in the Jewish political tradition.
He also founded and served as editor of the Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints
series and the scholarly journal Jewish Political Studies Review.
Read "The Many Faces of School Vouchers" by Daniel J. Elazar
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Executive Committee
Robert A. Licht was Co-Director of "Jews and the American Public Square" for the
Center for Jewish Community Studies in the first year of the project. He has taught at Bucknell
University and St. John's College, been a Visiting Scholar at the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics at
Georgetown University, the American Enterprise Institute, the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies
at the University of Maryland, the University of Chicago, and the
Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He has been a Resident Scholar and
Director of Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the editor
or co-editor of six volumes of essays and the author of many essays and reviews. He is a
Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and a frequent contributor to the
Jewish Political Studies Review.
Alan Mittleman was Director of "Jews and the American Public Square" for the
Center for Jewish Community Studies and is Professor of Jewish Thought and Director of the Louis Finkelstein Institute at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of three books, Between Kant and
Kabbalah (1990), The Politics of Torah (1995), and
The Scepter Shall Not Depart From Judah: Perspectives on the Persistence of the Political in
Judaism. Prof. Mittleman is an Alexander von
Humboldt-Stiftung Research Fellow and is guest research professor at the University of Cologne.
He is a recipient of a Starr Fellowship in Jewish History from the Harvard University Center for Jewish
Studies. He is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and serves on the Editorial Board
of Jewish Political Studies Review.
Jonathan Sarna taught at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati from 1979-1990, where he became Professor of American Jewish History and Director of the Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience. He has also taught at Yale University, the University of Cincinnatti, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Prof. Sarna came back to Brandeis in 1990 to assume the new Joseph H. and Belie R. Braun Professorship in American Jewish History in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies where he is chair of that department. He is also chair of the Academic Advisory and Educational Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, where he also serves as consulting scholar. In addition, he edits Brandeis Studies in American Jewish History, Culture and Life with the University Press of New England, and co-edits the American Jewish Civilization series at Wayne State University Press.
Prof. Sarna has written, edited or co-edited numerous books, including The American Jewish Experience; Jacksonian Jew, a biography of Mordecai Noah that was nominated for the National Jewish Book Award; JPS, a history of the Jewish Publication Society, and with Ellen Smith, The Jews of Boston, an illustrated scholarly history of that community. His most recent books are entitled Religion and State in the American Jewish Experience, and Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Mainstream.
Other Key Participants
Allan Arkush is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of JudaicStudies at SUNY-Binghamton. He has been a visiting professor at several other institutions, including the University of Texas and Clark University. He is the author of Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment and has published numerous articles and reviews in Modern Judaism, Jewish Social Studies, the AJS Review and other journals.
Marshall J. Breger is a Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law, the Catholic University of America. From 1993-95 he was Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation specializing in regulatory and trade policy (including NAFTA) as well as Middle East issues. During the Bush administration he served as Solicitor of Labor, the chief lawyer of the Labor Department with a staff of over 800 attorneys. During 1992 he concurrently served by presidential designation as Assistant Secretary for Labor Management Standards. From 1985-91 Breger was Chairman of the Administration Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency. During 1987-89 he also served as Alternate Delegate of the United States to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. From 1982-1984 he served as Special Assistant to President Reagan and was his liaison to the Jewish community. Breger is a contributing columnist to issues of Jewish public policy and has published in numerous law reviews and periodicals. He is the author (with Tom Idinopolis) of Jerusalem's Holy Places and the Peace Process (1998). Prof. Breger serves as Vice President of the Jewish Policy Center, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C., and is also a Senior Advisor to the Israel Policy Forum.
Joel M. Carp, Senior Vice President for Community Services and Government Relations of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, has spent his professional career in social work, social planning and advocacy. His responsibilities at the Federation include management of its Government Affairs Program and Offices in Chicago, Springfield and Washington, D.C. He is also responsible for planning and budgeting for Federation's social welfare agencies, foundation relationships, Project EZRA (Services for the Homeless, Chronically Mentally Ill and Economically Disadvantaged), planning for services for people with disabilities, and Chicago's Jewish Refugee Resettlement Program. As part of his government programs responsibilities, he supervises the State of Illinois' statewide refugee and immigration programs, for which the Federation is the prime contractor, as well as several homeless services programs which for the Federation receives city, state and federal government funding. Carp is a member of numerous local, state and national professional and community service organizations. He has published over 30 articles on various subjects in the field of social work, social planning, and resettlement. He has served a number of universities as a field faculty member in their graduate social work education programs. Prior to working for the Jewish Federation, he spend 20 years as a professional in the Jewish Community Center field.
Steven M. Cohen is a Professor at the Melton Center for Jewish Education of
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his B.A. and PhD from Columbia University and
has taught at Queens College of CUNY, and been a Visiting Professor at Brandeis University and the
Jewish Theological Seminary. He is the author or co-author of six books, including
Interethnic Marriage and Friendship; and American Modernity and Jewish Identity;
American Assimilation
or Jewish Revival? He co-authored with Samuel C. Heilman
Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in Americaand with Arnold
Eisen, Two Worlds of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experiences and The Jew Within.
(manuscript completed; under contract). He is the co-editor of four books, and the author of
numerous articles in refereed journals, chapters in books, basic social survey research
monographs and applied social research. He is the recipient, (with Jack Wertheimer and Charles
Liebman) of the Abraham Cahan Prize in Jewish Journalism, 1997, for best article in Jewish journalism
in 1996.
Sylvia Barack Fishman heads a program in Contemporary Jewish Life/Sociology of American Jews in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University, where she is an associate professor. She is also co-director of the International Research Institute in Jewish Women, established at Brandeis University by Hadassah. Dr. Fishman is the author of A Breath of Life: Feminism in the Jewish Community, named a 1994 Honor Book by the National Jewish Book Council, Follow My Footprints: Changing Images of Jewish Women, and Jewish Life and American Culture.
Hillel Fradkin was President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is currently a Fellow at the Hudson Institute. From 1986 to 1998 he was a member of the faculty of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and Vice-President of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has also served on the faculty of Columbia and Yale Universities. Dr. Fradkin is a student of the history of religious and political thought and their interaction. He has written on the history of Jewish and Islamic thought as well as the relationship between the Enlightenment and modern religious thoughts. He is currently working on a book entitled, With All Your Heart, Soul and Might: Human Freedom and Human Perfection in the Hebrew Bible.
Gordon Freeman currently serves as the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Shalom in Walnut Creek, California. He is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He completed his Master's degree in Government at New York University and his PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. His research has centered on the Jewish Political Tradition, with specific emphasis on Covenant and political themes in liturgy. He has written extensively in these areas. He is an associate of the Center for Jewish Community Studies and on the editorial board of Jewish Political Studies Review.
Rela Mintz Geffen is the President of the Baltimore Hebrew University. Prior to that she served as Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Programs in Jewish Communal Service at Gratz College in Philadelphia where she also served as Dean for Academic Affairs for five years. She was a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard and a Visiting Professor at Boston University. Her major research interests are in the areas of sociology of religion, particularly the American Jewish community. Dr. Geffen has written 35 scholarly articles and edited or co-edited three books including: Celebration and Renewal: Rites of Passage in Judaism (1992); A Double Bond: Constitutional Documents of American Jewry (with Daniel J. Elazar and Jonathan Sarna, 1992), and Freedom and Responsibility: Exploring the Dilemmas of Jewish Continuity (with Marsha Bryan Edelman, 1998. She has served as President of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry and as vice-president of the Association for Jewish Studies. She is the Editor of Contemporary Jewry, the journal of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry. She is a contributing editor of Sh'ma; an associate editor of the AJS Review; and on the editorial boards of Lilith and Jewish Political Studies Review.
Allen Glicksman serves as the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Philadelphia Corporation on Aging. His research has focused on the roles of religion, ethnicity, race and immigration status on the lives of older persons. Currently he is conducting a study of expressive styles among different ethnic groups and how these styles influence the manner in which the elderly talk about their own well being. He was also involved in a major study of access and
barriers to older refugees living in the community. Currently, much of his work is devoted to understanding the experiences of older Jews living in the region, including Jews born in the United States, Holocaust survivors who arrived after the Second World War and Jews born in the Soviet Union who came to the area in last two decades.
Samuel Heilman holds the Harold Proshansky Professorship in Jewish Studies and Sociology at the City University of New York. He has also been Scheinbrun Visiting Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, visiting professor of social anthropology at Tel Aviv University, and a Fulbright visiting professor at the Universities of New South Wales and Melbourne in Australia. He is the author of numerous articles and books including: Synagogue Life, The People of the Book, The Gate Behind the Wall, A Walker in Jerusalem, Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America (co-authored with Steven M. Cohen) and Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra Orthodox Jewry. His Stroum Lectures at the University of Washington were published in 1996 as: Portrait of American Jewry: The Last Half of the 20th Century. He also writes a monthly column on the sociology of Jewry for the New York Jewish Week and is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and newspapers.
Sherry Israel, a social psychologist, is an Associate Professor and
Coordinator of Israel Programs in the Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal
Service at Brandeis University. Her focus includes social research in the contemporary North American Jewish community. Dr.
Israel was Research Director for the Boston Federation's 1985 and 1995
demographic studies of the greater Boston Jewish community. She also provides
consultation and runs workshops on Jewish identity development, board and
organizational dynamics, conflict management, and related issues. Dr. Israel has held the position of Senior Planning Associate at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Greater Boston. She is
the author of Boston's Jewish Community (the 1985 CJP demographic study), the
Community Report and Comprehensive Report on the 1995 Boston Demographic Study,
and of articles on group process, planning in Jewish education, and Jewish
ethnicity and continuity. She is a former Vice President of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry and a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Center for Jewish Community Studies. Currently, she is a member of the research team for the Meaningful Jewish
Community Initiative of the JCC of Greater Boston. She serves as a member of
the National Technical Advisory Committee (for the United Jewish Communities'
year 2000 National Jewish Population Survey)and co-chair of its Subcommittee on
Jewish Identity and Education; Treasurer of the National Havurah Committee; and
a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the International Research Institute
on Jewish Women and of the Board of Advisors of the New Jewish High School in
Waltham, MA.
Michael Kotzin is Executive Vice President of the Jewish Federation and Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. He joined the staff of the Federation and Jewish United Fund in 1988 as Director of its Jewish Community Relations Council, a position which he held until July 1999, and he continues to supervise the activities of that body. Before coming to the Federation he directed the Chicago office of the Anti-Defamation League after serving in two other regional ADL offices. From 1968 until 1979 he was a faculty member at Tel Aviv University. More recently, he has written on Jewish communal affairs for numerous publications.
David Novak holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Schiff Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto since 1997 as Professor of the Study of Religion, Professor of Philosophy, and with appointments in University College, the Joint Centre of Bioethics, and the Institute if Medical Science. He is also the Director of the Jewish Studies Programme. From 1989 to 1997 he was the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia. Previously he taught at Oklahoma City University, Old Dominion University, the New School for Social Research, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Baruch College of the City University of New York. During 1966-1969 he was Jewish Chaplain to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, National Institute of Mental Health, in Washington D.C. He also served as a pulpit Rabbi in several American communities from 1966 to 1989. Novak is the founder, vice president and coordinator of the Panel of Inquiry on Jewish Law of the Union for Traditional Judaism. He is also the founder of the Institute of Traditional Judaism in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he lectures regularly. He serves as secretary-treasurer of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York and is in the editorial board of its monthly journal First Things. He is a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Academy for Jewish Philosophy. Novak is the author of numerous books including Natural Law in Judaism (1998) and Covenantal Rights (2000).
Martin J. Raffel is associate executive vice chairman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and director of the Council's Task Force on Israel and Other International Concerns. He is the primary source at the JCPA (formerly the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council) for international issues and, on the basis of consultations with national and local member agencies, he provides guidance to the community relations field in responding to developments affecting Israel, U.S. policy in the Middle East, the status of Jewish communities around the world and human rights. Before joining the JCPA in 1987, Mr. Raffel served as vice president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, executive director of the Pennsylvania Region of the American Jewish Congress and assistant director of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
Harvey Sicherman is President and Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. He served as Special Assistant to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. (1981-82) and was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of Secretary of State James A. Baker, III.
Dr. Sicherman was also a consultant to Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Jr. (1982-1987) and Secretary of State George Shultz (1988).
He is author of numerous books and articles, including "New Directions in U.S.-Chinese Relations" (March 1997), co-authored with former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr.; "The Chinese Economy: A New Scenario" (February 1999), co-edited with Murray Weidenbaum; and "The Future of American Military Culture," coedited with John Lehman (May 1999). His books include Palestinian Autonomy, Self-Government and Peace (1993), and The Three Percent Solution and the Future of NATO (1982).
Lance J. Sussman is Associate Professor of American Jewish History at
Binghamton University and Rabbi at Temple Concord (Reform) in
Binghamton, NY. He is the author of Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism, editor of Reform Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Source Book, and associate editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of the State of New York.
David A. Teutsch was Executive Vice President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College for three years before assuming the office of President in September 1993. He is also Chairman of RRC's Department of Contemporary Civilization. From 1982 to 1986 David served as Executive Director of JRF. He is also active in both the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and several national Jewish organizations. A
well-known Jewish communal leader, he is a broadly published author and noted lecturer. Dr. Teutsch is the editor-in-chief of the Kol Haneshamah prayer book series. He is the editor of the book, Imagining the Jewish Future.
Steven Windmueller is the Director of the Irwin Daniels School of Jewish Communal Service of the Hebrew Union College. He has held a number of prominent positions within the Jewish community over the course of a twenty-five year professional career. Most recently, he served for ten years as the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles. A specialist on political issues and American Jewish affairs, Dr. Windmueller holds a doctorate degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania and has held academic appointments at major American institutions of higher learning, including Rutgers, the State University of New York at Albany, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Windmueller has served as a federation and agency director and a resource specialist on the staff of the American Jewish Committee in Washington and New York. Currently, he serves as an associate member of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
