eCLAL Senior Staff Biographies

Rabbi Irwin Kula, Publisher

Rabbi Irwin Kula is the President of CLAL. He previously served as CLAL's Director of Education. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University; his B.H.L. from the Seminary College of Jewish Studies, JTSA; and his Master of Arts in Rabbinics and his Rabbinic Ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, NY.

Rabbi Kula served for six years as rabbi of Congregation B'nai Amoona in St. Louis, Missouri. He then received a fellowship, funded by the Wexner Heritage Foundation, to study privately with Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg. Rabbi Kula previously served as rabbi of Congregation Agudas Achim in Queens, NY, and as rabbi of the Conservative Congregation of the Old City in Jerusalem, Israel. He has also served on the boards of many community agencies, including the Executive Committee of the Rabbinic Cabinet of UJA.

Presently, Rabbi Kula teaches and lectures throughout the United States and serves on the faculty of the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He serves as consultant to both corporate and family foundations, as well as to federations, synagogues and agencies on the issues of Jewish identity and institutional change. In addition, he founded the Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Chicago.

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Email: ikula@clal.org

Michael Gottsegen, Ph.D., Editor in Chief

Dr. Michael Gottsegen is the Editor in Chief of eCLAL: a Journal of Religion, Public Life and Culture and a CLAL Senior Fellow. He received a Ph.D. in Political Theory from Columbia University and is currently at work on a Ph.D. in Religion at Harvard University.

Michael has taught political philosophy at Columbia University and Jewish philosophy at Brandeis University. He has written The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt, published by State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y. in 1993, and is currently at work on a study of the relationship among politics, ethics, holiness, and law in modern Jewish thought. He was also the Judaica Forums Editor at MSN, the Microsoft Network. At CLAL, he edits eCLAL, directs CLAL's internet ventures and teaches in the areas of Jewish ethics, American public policy and Israeli politics and society.

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Email: mgottsegen@clal.org

For more detailed information about eCLAL's writers -- including their professional biographies, areas of expertise and recent speaking engagements and articles, click here.