Jay R. Berkovitz is Professor of Jewish History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he directs the Center for Jewish Studies. Also a specialist in Jewish law, he received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He is the author of The Shaping of Jewish Identity in Nineteenth Century France (Wayne State University Press, 1989), The Life and Letters of Rabbi Salomon Ulmann (forthcoming), and has now completed a new book, Rites and Passages: The Making of Jewish Culture in Modern France, to be published in Israel.

Avi Bernstein-Nahar is the Dean of Educational Planning and Development and Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew College. He has taught previously at Boston College, the University of Toronto and Rutgers University. His work has appeared in the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, Journal of Jewish Education and the Jewish Book Annual. His current writing project explores pluralism and self-determination as contrasting but reconcilable goals in contemporary Jewish education. He earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University.

Harvey Bock is a lecturer in Hebrew at Hebrew College and a former general counsel for Discover Card. He is a graduate of the Yeshivah of Flatbush, Yale College and Yale Law School. An accomplished translator, Bock is in his second year on the Me'ah Graduate Institute faculty.

Marc Brettler is the Dora Golding Professor of Bible and chairs the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, where he was awarded the Michael L. Walzer Teaching Prize. He is the author of many articles on literary and historical aspects of biblical texts and co-editor of The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2004), winner of a National Jewish Book Award in 2004. Dr. Brettler has been a Me'ah instructor since the program's inception in 1994.

Shaye J.D. Cohen is Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University. He has lectured widely and has appeared on Frontline, Nova and the History Channel. He is the author of From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Westminster John Knox Press, 1987), which is widely used as a Me'ah textbook. A prolific author, his Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (University of California Press) is scheduled for publication in 2005.

Reuven Cohn is an adult Jewish educator, a practicing attorney and a trained mediator. He holds rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University, a J.D. from Yale University and has pursued advanced graduate work in Jewish studies at Harvard University under Professor Isadore Twersky z'l. Rabbi Cohn also teaches at Me'ah and Ma'ayan, and is on the faculty of Hebrew College Online.

Alanna Cooper is a senior fellow at Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions, where she is engaged in research on Jewish identity, Diaspora relationships, and the Jews of Eastern Lands (Edot HaMizrach). Alanna received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Boston University. Her dissertation, which is on the Bukharan Jews, traces the historical and contemporary relationship between this Central Asian Diaspora group and the wider Jewish world.

Sigalit Davis received her bachelor's in Education and in Hebrew Language at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She has extensive experience teaching at Hebrew schools across the United States, including the Jewish Community Day School in Watertown. She is currently a mentor teacher at JCDS, working with the Brandeis University Education Department.

Dr. Everett Fox is the Alan M. Glick Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Clark University. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Dr. Fox's books include In the Beginning (New York: Schocken Books, 1983), Now These are the Names (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), Scripture and Translation (ed., with Lawrence Rosenwald, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996) and The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken Books, 1995).

Scott Girdner is the History of Muslim Civilizations Fellow at Boston University, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in Islamic Studies and received his M.A. in Philosophy of Religion. His B.A. is in Religious Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University. His research interests include the history of Muslim philosophy and theology, and the history of cultural exchange among Muslims, Christians, and Jews with a particular focus on shared mystical and philosophical traditions of scriptural hermeneutics.

Sara Hascal is a Hebrew lecturer at Brandeis University. She was a member of the team that developed authentic reading comprehension materials in Hebrew for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL), the first publication of its kind for Hebrew and the only one currently available. Along with her colleagues, she also published Brandeis Modern Hebrew, which has become the standard college Hebrew textbook in America.

Mark Leuchter teaches and conducts research into biblical literature and ancient Israelite religion. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. In addition to Israelite religion and biblical literature, he also teaches courses in comparative religion and religion and cinema.

Maud Mandel is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and History at Brown University, and received her A.M. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and her B.A. from Oberlin College. She specializes in modern Jewish history and has written extensively on the impact of genocide on the reconstruction of community and on inter-ethnic relations. Her work has been marked by an on-going engagement with comparative historical methodology, and she has written extensively about Armenian and Muslim communities in France. Her monograph, In the Aftermath of Genocide: Armenians and Jews in Twentieth Century France, was published by Duke University Press in 2003.

Natan Margalit earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and rabbinic ordination from Machon Harry Fischel (The Jerusalem Seminary). He has served as Jewish Chaplain and Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Bard College as well as Director of Education at Makor, a Jewish cultural and arts center in New York. He has published many articles on gender, textual practice, ecology and spirituality, and is currently at work on a book about gender in the Mishnah.

Jacob Meskin is Assistant Professor of Jewish Education at Hebrew College and a Me'ah instructor. He has taught previously at Princeton University, Williams College and Rutgers University. His articles have appeared in Modern Judaism, The Journal of Religion, Soundings, Judaism, Cross Currents and in several edited volumes. He is currently completing a manuscript on the relationship between philosophy and Jewish tradition in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Carl Perkins is the rabbi at Temple Aliyah in Needham. He has taught at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College and is a Me'ah instructor. He received his rabbinic ordination and master's degree in Rabbinics and Talmud from the Jewish Theological Seminary as well as a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Asher Ragen is a graduate of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he studied ancient Near Eastern languages and history. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at Harvard University, writing his dissertation on the temple societies of the Near East in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. He teaches in many adult education settings in the Boston area and is a Me'ah instructor.

Anna Petrov Ronell is a visiting professor at Wellesley College, received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University and a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from Penn State. Her current research focuses on the image of pre-Holocaust Jewry in contemporary Jewish fiction.

Michael Satlow is Associate Professor at Brown University in the Program in Judaic Studies/Department of Religious Studies and is a Me'ah instructor. He specializes in early Judaism and is the author of Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2001) and Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality (Scholars Press, 1995). He is now working on a project on Jewish piety in antiquity as well as continuing to develop an interactive database of inscriptions from Israel that will be accessible over the Internet.

Meir Sendor is rabbi of Young Israel of Sharon. He holds rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University and a doctorate in Medieval Jewish History from Harvard University. He is currently completing a manuscript on the early development of Kabbalah and lectures widely on Jewish history, philosophy, law and mysticism. Rabbi Sendor serves as an instructor in the Me'ah program.