In cooperation with the Gordon Jewish Community Center, Barnes & Noble at Vanderbilt presents historian and rabbi David Dalin, who will discuss and sign his recent book, Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan, in the bookstore Thursday, Jan. 25, at 7 p.m.
Dalin, an ordained rabbi and widely published scholar of American Jewish history and Jewish–Christian relations, has taught Jewish studies at several universities. He has been a visiting professor at George Washington University and at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and has been the Taube Research Fellow in American History at Stanford University. During the 2002–03 academic year, he was a visiting fellow in Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Since then, he has been a member of Princeton’s James Madison Society.
Dalin earned his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University, and also received his rabbinic ordination and a second M.A. from the Jewish Theological Seminary. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of divinity from the Jewish Theological Seminary. For 16 years he served on the editorial board of the journal Conservative Judaism.
Dalin is the author, co-author or editor of 11 previous books, including Religion and State in the American Jewish Experience (co-authored with Jonathan D. Sarna), which in 1998 was selected by CHOICE magazine among the outstanding academic books of 1997. Considered one of the country’s leading authorities on American Jewish–presidential relations, he is co-author of the book The Presidents of the United States and the Jews, published in 2000. His latest book, Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court, is the first history of the eight Jewish men and women who have served or who currently serve as justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.