Advisors

Robert Brustein, founding director of the Yale Repertory and American Repertory theatres, is Professor of English at Harvard and long time drama critic for The New Republic. He is a recipient of the George Polk award in journalism, the Elliot Norton Award for professional excellence in Boston theatre, and the 1995 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. Mr. Brustein has written eleven adaptations for the American Repertory Theatre, and is the author of thirteen books on theatre and society.

Sarah Blacher Cohen is a Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Saul Bellow's Enigmatic Laughter and Cynthia Ozwick's Comic Art From Levity to Liturgy. She is also the editor of Comic Relief Essays on Contemporary Literature, From Hester Street to Hollywood and Jewish Wry: Essays on Jewish Humor. She is the General Editor of the SUNY Press series, Modern Jewish Literature and Culture and the Wayne State University Press Series, Humor in Life and Letters. She also served as a humor consultant for the Library of Congress.

Alan Dershowitz graduated from Yeshiva University high school and Brooklyn College.  At Yale Law School, he was first in his class and editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.  He was appointed to the Harvard Law faculty at age 25 and became a full professor at age 28, the youngest in the school's history. His book, Chutzpah, received critical acclaim as one of the most important books about Jews in America since World War II and shot to the top of the New York Times and other bestseller lists. While Alan Dershowitz is considered to be one of the foremost legal minds in America, it is not generally known that stand-up comedy was his second career choice.

Michael Feldberg is the Executive Director of the American Jewish Historical Society. He writes a weekly feature for the society, "Chapters in American Jewish History," which is now syndicated nationally to the American Jewish Press. Feldberg participated in the planning and construction of the Center for Jewish History in New York, which became the headquarters of the American Jewish Historical Society in 1999. As part of the Society, Feldberg has initiated several major publication projects, including Jewish Women in America: A Historical Encyclopedia and A Survivor’s Haggadah. Feldberg also served as the Chief Executive Officer of a consortium of major cultural and educational institutions in the Fenway area of Boston, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Symphony.

Michael Krasny is an author and professor of literature at San Francisco State University. Host of KQED’s Forum program, Krasny’s numerous awards include a Meritorious Achievement in Radio award from Media Alliance, the S.Y. Agnon Award for Intellectual Distinction from Hebrew University, Human Rights Coverage award from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the George Knox Award in Journalism.

Jack Kugelmass is Director of the Jewish Studies Program and a Professor of Humanities and Jewish Studies at Arizona State University. He was the Associate Dean at the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies. Kugelmass serves as Editor for City and Society and was the recipient of awards and honors including the Grierson Award: Best Documentary for the Miracle of Intervale Avenue. His research projects and publication works include Let There Be Laughter, with Esther Romeyn and Going Home: How American Jews Invented the Old Country, Ethnographic Essays on American Jewry.

Gerald Nachman has written for many publications including the New York Post and the New York Daily News and was the long time theatre critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. Nachman has won a New York Newspaper Guild Page One Award for humor writing. He is the author of five books including Raised on Radio, an informal history of the golden age of radio. Raised on Radio received rave reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and other major papers. Nachman's recent book about the satirical comedians of the 1950s and 1960s, Seriously Funny, is the first to focus on this era in American comedy.

Don L. F. Nilsen is a Professor of English Linguistics at Arizona State University and the Executive Secretary of the International Society for Humor Studies. He has a BA degree in French from Brigham Young University, an MA in Applied Linguistics from American University and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan. Over the past forty years he has published more than 100 articles and more than 40 critical reviews of books. Nilsen's most recent book is co-authored with Alleen Nilsen and is entitled Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. In 2000 he also published Humor in 20th Century American Literature. He has also published several other books on humor.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, ordained at Yeshiva University in New York, is the author of Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History, which is the most popular book on Judaism of the past two decades. He has written other books including The Book of Jewish Values: A Day by Day Guide to Ethical Living which was also the subject of a PBS special that aired in December 2000, Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews and An Eye for an Eye, which became the basis for four episodes of David Kelley’s Emmy Award-winning ABC TV series The Practice. Telushkin was the co-writer with David Brandes and the Associate Producer of the 1991 film The Quarrel.

Donald Weber is Professor of English and American Studies at Mount Holyoke College, where he is Chair of the English Department. He teaches and writes about American literature and culture. His first book, Rhetoric and History in Revolutionary New England, examined the intersection of religious and political languages during a moment of cultural crisis. He is currently finishing a study of modern Jewish American Culture titled Accents of the Future, which discusses the range of Jewish American expression between 1900 and the present, including chapters on early Jewish fiction, immigrant cinema, early television and comedy.

Stephen J. Whitfield holds the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization at Brandeis University, where he has taught for three decades. He has also served as Fulbright visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has twice served as a visiting professor of American Studies at the Sorbonne. He is the author of eight books, including Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau: Jews in American Life and Thought, American Space, Jewish Time and most recently In Search of American Jewish Culture.