Steven Windmueller is an American scholar and Jewish communal professional. He is a professor emeritus at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, CA where he teaches courses on contemporary political issues and American Jewish affairs. [1] He is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, [2] and a board member of the Jewish Federation and the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles [3] [4]
Windmueller is an author in the field of Jewish political studies, having written more than 100 articles, books and essays on such topics as anti-Semitism, American Jewish political behavior, Jewish institutional trends, Jewish power and the Middle East. [5] He is a contributing author to eJewish Philanthropy, [6] the Jewish Week [7] and the Jewish Journal, [8] and has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, [9] the Jewish Daily Forward, [10] CNN, PBS and NBC.
Windmueller received a doctorate in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973, and then launched his professional career on staff of the American Jewish Committee. He served twelve years as the executive director of the Jewish Federation in Albany, New York (1973-1985), and ten years as the executive director of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation's Community Relations Committee (1985-1995). [11] In 1995, he joined the faculty of the Hebrew Union College. He would direct its School of Jewish Communal Service (now the School of Jewish Nonprofit Management) from 1995-2005, before becoming dean of the Los Angeles campus in 2006, a position he held until 2010. [1] In 2009, HUC President David Ellenson appointed Windmueller to the Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk Chair in Jewish Communal Service, one of only twelve endowed HUC faculty positions. [12]
During his career, he has consulted with government officials and political candidates; has represented the Jewish community on various international missions; and has contributed a number of articles and essays to the growing field of Jewish political studies. [13]
In 1999, Windmueller received a grant from the John Randolph Haynes Foundation to undertake the first major study of Jewish-Latino relations in Los Angeles. [13] Key elements of this research have appeared in various publications, including the book California Jews (Brandeis, 2003). [13] His Pew-funded [14] research on the major national Jewish community relations agencies appeared in a 2002 publication, Jewish Polity and American Civil Society: Communal Agencies and Religious Movements in the American Public Square (Rowman and Littlefield), [15] and in 2004, he produced a textbook on the practice of Jewish community relations, titled You Shall Not Stand Idly By (American Jewish Committee). [13] [16] In December 2003, Windmueller released several studies on Jewish voting patterns, including the article Are American Jews Becoming Republican? Insights into Jewish Political Behavior, [17] which was published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. [13] In early 2005, Windmueller collaborated with Professor Gerald Bubis in producing the first study on the formation of the UJC (United Jewish Communities), titled Predictability to Chaos?? How American Jewish Leaders Reinvented their National Jewish Communal System. [13] His work in 2007 on The Second American Jewish Revolution has appeared in several different publications; [18] this research was followed by a 2008 article called A Jewish Perspective on the Global Economic Revolution, [19] which was published by the University of Southern California's Casden Institute, in its Annual Review (Volume 6). [13] That same year, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs released his study on Jewish Communities of the West. [13] [20] In May 2014, he released his book The Quest for Power: A Study in Jewish Political Behavior and Practice, which explores the political culture of Judaism from biblical times to the contemporary era. [21] A few years ago, Windmueller launched The Wind Report, [22] an interactive website and online repository for his extensive writings on Jewish public affairs and global social trends.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance education, defending Israel, and its Museum of Tolerance.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to The New York Times, is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations".
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% identify as Sephardic, and 1% identify as Mizrahi. An additional 6% identify as some combination of the three categories, and 25% do not identify as any particular category.
Jewish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history, Middle Eastern studies, Asian studies, Oriental studies, religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages, political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies. Jewish studies as a distinct field is mainly present at colleges and universities in North America.
Yerida is emigration by Jews from the State of Israel. Yerida is the opposite of aliyah, which is immigration by Jews to Israel. Zionists are generally critical of the act of yerida and the term is somewhat derogatory. The emigration of non-Jewish Israelis is not included in the term.
Yehuda Bauer is a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He is a professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism is the organizational branch of Progressive Judaism in Israel, and a member organization of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It currently has 40 communities and congregations around the state of Israel, 13 of which are new congregations – referred to as U'faratztah communities – and two kibbutzim, Yahel and Lotan.
Alan I. Casden is an American real estate developer, investor and philanthropist. His real estate companies have developed over 90,000 multi-family apartments since the 1980s. He also owns 3,100 luxury apartments in Los Angeles.
Manfred Gerstenfeld was an Austrian-born Israeli author and chairman of the steering committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He founded and directed the center's post-Holocaust and anti-Semitism program.
A bilateral relationship exists between Armenia and Israel. From 1993 to 2007, Armenia was served by the Embassy of Israel in Georgia. In 1996, Tsolak Momjian was appointed the honorary consul of Armenia in Jerusalem. Eleven years later, the residence of the Embassy of Israel in Armenia was moved to Jerusalem. In October 2010, Shmuel Meirom was appointed the Israeli ambassador to Armenia. Armen Melkonian was appointed the Armenian ambassador to Israel in 2012, with a residence in Cairo. In October of that year, Melkonian presented his credentials to Israeli president Shimon Peres. On 21 September 2019 Armenia announced that it would be opening an embassy in Israel. Despite generally cordial ties between the two, relations soured after Armenia withdrew its ambassador to Israel due to Israeli arms supply to Armenia's enemy, Azerbaijan, in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Israeli Americans are Americans who are of full or partial Israeli descent. In this category are those who are Israelis through nationality and/or citizenship. Reflecting Israel's demographics, while the vast majority of the Israeli American populace is Jewish, it is also made up of various ethnic and religious minorities; most notably the ethnic Arab minority, which includes Christians, Druzes, and Muslims, as well as the smaller non-Arab minority ethnic groups.
The first openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clergy in Judaism were ordained as rabbis and/or cantors in the second half of the 20th century.
The Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the historical kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and whose traditional religion is Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion, but not all ethnic Jews practice Judaism. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as Jews.
Uri D. Herscher is an American rabbi and academic, who founded and serves as CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
Steven M. Cohen is an American sociologist whose work focuses on the American Jewish Community. He served as a Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and as Director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford University before his July 2018 resignation stemming from allegations of sexual harassment.
Daniella Kolodny is the first female rabbi enlisted in the United States Naval Academy, which she joined in 2004. She was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary that year. In 2010 the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly appointed Kolodny as its Community Development Coordinator.
Mervin Feldman Verbit is an American sociologist whose work focuses on sociology of religion, American Jews and the American Jewish community. He is currently the chair of the Sociology Department at Touro College.
Jews in Los Angeles comprise approximately 17.5 percent of the city's population, and 7% of the county's population, making the Jewish community the largest in the world outside of New York City and Israel. As of 2015, over 700,000 Jews live in the County of Los Angeles, and 1.232 million Jews live in California overall. Jews have immigrated to Los Angeles since it was part of the Mexican state of Alta California, but most notably beginning at the end of the 19th century to the present day. The Jewish population rose from about 2,500 in 1900 to at least 700,000 in 2015. The large Jewish population has led to a significant impact on the culture of Los Angeles. The Jewish population of Los Angeles has seen a sharp increase in the past several decades, owing to internal migration of Jews from the East Coast, as well as immigration from Israel, France, the former Soviet Union, the UK, South Africa, and Latin America, and also due to the high birth rate of the Hasidic and Orthodox communities who comprise about 10% of the community's population.
Andrew Rehfeld is an American political scientist who is serving as the 10th and current President of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, where he is also Professor of Political Thought. His research has focused primarily on the concepts and history of political representation; exploring how institutional design and reform can strengthen democracy and advance justice.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)