Dr. Sarna is one of America’s foremost commentators on American Jewish history, religion and life. Born in Philadelphia, and raised in New York and Boston, he attended Brandeis University, the Boston Hebrew College, Merkaz HaRav Kook in Jerusalem, and Yale University, where he obtained his doctorate in 1979. From 1979-1990, Dr. Sarna taught at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he rose to become 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 Cincinnati, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Sarna came back to Brandeis in 1990 to assume the new Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professorship in American Jewish history in the Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies. He served two terms as chair of that department, and now chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, where he also serves as consulting scholar. In addition, he directs the Gralla Program for Journalists in the Jewish and Religious Press, and edits two series in American Jewish history, one with Brandeis University Press, and the other with Wayne State University Press. Dr. Sarna has written, edited or co-edited twenty books, including The American Jewish Experience, a reader; People Walk On Their Heads, a volume dealing with Jewish immigrant life in New York, Jacksonian Jew, a biography of Mordecai Noah; JPS, a cultural 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; Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives; and Jews and the American Public Square. Articles, reviews, and commentaries by Dr. Sarna appear regularly in scholarly and popular journals, as well as Jewish newspapers across North America. In addition, he sits on half-a-dozen editorial committees and reviews Jewish books for the Boston Globe. Dr. Sarna is now completing a new interpretive history of American Judaism to be published by Yale University Press. He is married to Professor Ruth Langer, and they have two children, Aaron and Leah. Sample topics for a weekend series include: “350 YEARS OF AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY”, “GEORGE WASHINGTON’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE JEWS OF NEWPORT [TEXT STUDY]”, “UNION AND DISUNION IN MID-19TH CENTURY AMERICAN JEWISH LIFE,” “THE AMERICANIZATION OF MATZAH” and “THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN JEW/ AMERICAN JUDAISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY”.