Whatever else American Jews may believe in, it is doubtful the majority of them believe in Judaism. That at least is what the surveys suggest, as do the low rates of synagogue membership on the one hand, the high rates of intermarriage on the other. In an effort to gauge the current state of religious opinion among the engaged minority, the editors of COMMENTARY turned to prominent rabbis and thinkers across the denominational spectrum.
The contributions printed here do not represent a complete cross section of Jewish religious thought today. In particular, regrettably excluded by our rules of selection were a number of distinguished figures who are either not Americans or are Americans residing elsewhere (for example in Israel). As f or the 47 who appear below, they include heads of rabbinical seminaries; congregational rabbis; officials of the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements; scholars and professors; and independent intellectuals whose diverse perspectives have been avowedly influenced by their religious faith.
About the Authors
David Berger is professor of history at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School, City University of New York.
Saul J. Berman, an Orthodox rabbi, is associate professor of Jewish studies at Stern College and adjunct professor of Jewish law at Columbia University law school.
David R. Blumenthal is the Jay and Leslie Cohen professor of Judaic studies at Emory University.
Marshall J. Breger is visiting professor of law at the Columbus law school, Catholic University of America. From 1983 to 1985 he was a special assistant to President Reagan, serving as liaison to the Jewish community.
Nina Beth Cardin is editor of Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility and associate director of the National Center for Jewish Healing.
David G. Dalin, a Conservative rabbi, is associate professor of American Jewish history at the University of Hartford, and visiting associate professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. His most recent book (with Jonathan D. Sarna) is the forthcoming Religion and State in the American Jewish Experience.
Elliot N. Dorff, a Conservative rabbi, is rector and professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.
David Ellenson is I.H. and Anna Grancell professor of Jewish religious thought at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform) in Los Angeles.
Michael Fishbane is Nathan Cummings professor of Jewish studies at the University of Chicago.
Barry Freundel is the rabbi of Kesher Israel, an Orthodox congregation in Washington, D.C., and vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America and chairman of its ethics committee. He is also adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University.
David Gelernter is a contributing editor of the City Journal and National Review, and art critic for the Weekly Standard. He is the author of 1939: The Lost World of the Fair, and is currently at work on a new book, David King of Israel.
Marc Gellman is rabbi of Temple Beth Torah (Reform) in Melville, New York.
Neil Gillman, a Conservative rabbi, teaches Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
David M. Gordis is president of Hebrew College in Boston and director of the Wilstein Institute of Jewish Policy Studies.
Arthur Green is Philip W. Lown professor of Jewish thought at Brandeis University.
Blu Greenberg is an author and lecturer on feminism and the Jewish family. Her most recent book is Black Bread: Poems, After the Holocaust (KTAV).
Joshua O. Haberman is president of the Washington-based Foundation for Jewish Studies, author of The God I Believe In: Conversations about Judaism, and senior rabbi emeritus of the Washington Hebrew Congregation (Reform).
David Weiss Halivni is Lucius N. Littauer professor of classical Jewish civilization at Columbia University and rector of the Institute of Traditional Judaism. His memoirs, The Book and the Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction, will be published this fall by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Susannah Heschel holds the Abba HUM Silver chair in Jewish studies at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of a forthcoming monograph on Abraham Geiger, and is the editor of On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, and of Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays by Abrah
© 2010 Commentary Inc.
