JONATHAN D. SARNA is a historian and leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion and life. Dubbed by the Forward newspaper in 2004 as one of America's 50 most influential American Jews, Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, and the 18th president of the Association for Jewish Studies. The author of hundreds of scholarly articles, Sarna may be best known for his acclaimed American Judaism: A History, winner of the Jewish Book Council's "Jewish Book of the Year Award."