Freddie Rokem is the Emanuel Herzikowitz Professor for 19th and 20th Century Art and teaches in the Department of Theatre Studies at Tel Aviv University, where he served as the Dean of the Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts (2002-2006); he is also a permanent visiting Professor at Helsinki University, Finland. During 2007-2008 he was a visiting Professor at Stanford University, the Free University in Berlin and UC Berkeley. Rokem’s book Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre published by University of Iowa Press (2000; paperback 2007) received the ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education) Prize for best theatre studies book in 2001. His most recent book, Strindberg’s Secret Codes was published by Norvik Press in 2004. He has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals and chapters in books. Rokem is editor of Theatre Research International (2006-2009). He is also a translator and a dramaturg, is vice President of Performance Studies International (PSi) and is a member of the executive committee of The International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR).

Email Address: rokem@post.tau.ac.il

Janet Arnold is founder (1988) and producing director of the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company, and has been an actress with various companies throughout the Valley for the past 21 years. Arnold is a past-president of the Association for Jewish Theatre, an international network of theatres and individuals dedicated to the enhancement of Jewish theatre, and serves as the current membership chair. On the community volunteer level, Janet is a past chapter and Regional president of ORT, served a number of years on the Adult BBYO Board, and is a member of Jewish Women International. Janet was named Creative Artist of the Year by the YWCA and honored at their Tribute to Women 2001 Luncheon. She has also been nominated for the Governor's Arts Awards in Arizona for 2008.

Email Address: janet@azjewishtheatre.org

Shmuel Atzmon-Wircer is artistic director, actor, director, translator and adaptor for the stage. Founder and director of Yiddishpiel Theater in Tel Aviv. Atzmon immigrated to Israel from Poland in 1948, and after the War of Independence joined the Ohel Theater's Actors Studio. Then he joined the Habima National Theatre where he played a variety of roles and directed a large number of plays. Atzmon has portrayed about one hundred roles. He was among the founders of the avant-garde Zavit Theater, which he managed for ten years. He received a scholarship to study in New York and then with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. In the course of his fifty years extensive activity in the theatre Atzmon has won many prizes, including the Theater Prize for a Lifetime's Work, the Scheiber Prize for Literature and Art, the Meir Margalit Prize, the Lerner Yiddish Foundation Award, and others.

Email Address: atzmons@netvision.net.il

Shlomo Bar-Shavit is member of the Habima Theatre Company since 1949, playing some 200 roles in classic, Jewish, contemporary and original productions. Served on Habima's board of directors between 1958 and 1960, and as the theatre's Artistic Director between 1976 and 1978. Over the years, Bar-Shavit has appeared in various musicals and productions of non-repertory theatres. More recently, he has played a variety of roles at the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, the Beit Lessin Theatre and the Beersheba Municipal Theatre. He has written and directed dozens of children's plays and appeared on numerous radio and television programs. Awarded several prizes and awards, including the honorary title Yakir Tel Aviv (Worthy of Tel Aviv), and the Israel Theatre Prize for the year 2000 for his life's achievement. He is the executor of the estate of the late Hanna Rovina, the "First Lady of Israeli Theatre". Zmora-Bitan Publishers has published his biography, The Ninth Soul.

Deborah Baer Mozes is founder and artistic director of Theatre Ariel in Philadelphia. Since the inception of the company, she has given life to over 42 new plays and created and directed Theatre Ariel's museum productions, A MUSE in the MUSEum: Journeys in American Jewish History and Heart and History, in partnership with the National Museum of American Jewish History. She was literary manager and dramaturge for the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, associate artistic director of Stageworks Touring Company of New Jersey, artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Workshop and guest director for the Actors Theatre of Toronto. Mozes has served on the faculties of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Rowan State University, University of Winnipeg, and the Institute of Contemporary Midrash. In 1997/1998 Mozes was artist-in-residence with the Arad Arts Project in Israel. She is co-editor with Julianne Bernstein of Voices from Ariel: Ten-minute plays exploring the Jewish experience, published by Dramatic Publishing (August, 1999).

Email Address: dbm@netreach.net

Prof. Joel Berkowitz is Associate Professor and Chair of the Judaic Studies Department at the University at Albany, SUNY. He received a Ph.D. in Theatre at the City University of New York Graduate Center, served as a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow in Jerusalem, and previously taught in the City University of New York system and at Oxford University. He is the author of Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage (2002), editor of Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches (2003), co-editor (with Jeremy Dauber) of Landmark Yiddish Plays: A Critical Anthology (2006), and founding editor of the online newsletter, the Yiddish Theatre Forum. He teaches courses on modern Jewish literature, history, theatre, and film.

Email Address: yankl@albany.edu

Elise Bernhardt is President and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture (formerly the NFJC) where she began her tenure in June 2006. Prior to this position, Ms Bernhardt was the Artistic Advisor of NYCity Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. She was Executive Director of The Kitchen, the performance space in Chelsea, NY from 1998-2004. Bernhardt founded the organization Dancing in the Streets, which produces performances in public spaces, which she directed from 1983-1998. She has served on numerous panels and committees and is the recipient of the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture, the BAX 10 Award, the Doris C. Freedman Award for enriching the public environment, a Certificate of Merit from the Municipal Art Society of NYC and a Distinguished Alumnae citation from Sarah Lawrence College

Website: www.jewishculture.org

Email Address: ebernhardt@JewishCulture.org

Dr. Paola Bertolone is Professor of history of theatre at the University of Siena. She is the author of a DVD documentary on Alessandro Fersen and of several articles and books on Goldfaden's theatre and Eleonora Duse. She is also co-editor of Café Savoy. Teatro Yiddish in Europa, Bulzoni, Roma 2006.

Email Address: p.bertolone@tiscalinet.it

Leon Botstein has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) since 1992; in 2003 he was appointed music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of the Israel Broadcast Authority. Botstein is the founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Bard Music Festival at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Botstein is also a prominent scholar of music history, an editor of Musical Quarterly, and the author of numerous articles and books. For his contributions to music he has received Harvard University's prestigious Centennial Award, as well as the Cross of Honor, First Class from the government of Austria. Since 1975, he has been president of Bard College in New York and also holds the Leon Levy Chair in Arts and Humanities.

Website: http://www.americansymphony.org/

Mike Burstyn is an acclaimed American/Israeli actor who started his career in the Yiddish theatre at the age of seven. Burstyn starred on Broadway in Barnum, The Megilla, Inquest and Ain't Broadway Grand (Outer Critics Circle nomination) and in the revival of The Rothschilds (Drama Desk award nomination). He received rave reviews in Lansky & as Al Jolson in the Musical Jolson. He is one of Israel's most beloved artists and winner of two Israeli "Oscars" for his legendary films Kuni Leml and Hershele. The Komediant – winner of the Israeli "Oscar" for Best Documentary about Mike, his sister and his legendary parents Pesach'ke Burstein and Lillian Lux in the Yiddish Theatre – was recently released on DVD.

Website: www.mikeburstyn.com

Email Address: MikeBurst@aol.com

David Y. Chack was recently honored by being chosen as one of the semi-finalists of the The Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation at Brandeis University. Chack is a graduate of NYU/TSOA and did graduate work at Tufts University with Laurence Senelick and at Boston University with Elie Wiesel. He is consulting on a number of projects that take him between Chicago, Louisville, New York, Boston, and Israel. He has worked with JCC's, Hillel Foundations in Boston and Virginia, Virginia Humanities Foundation, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Louisville Orchestra, Hillels Around Chicago, Jewish Theatre Ensemble at Northwestern University, and the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School of Hebrew University. He is on the boards of All About Jewish Theatre, the Association for Jewish Theatre (AJT), The International Institute of Jewish & Israeli Culture, and is an alumnus of the Mandel Teacher Educators Institute in Israel. He is currently writing about Jews in performing arts in America and creating multi-cultural theatre through parables and midrash.

Website: http://www.historybox.com/throughline/index1.htm

Email Address: chack@iglou.com

Dr. Brigitte Dalinger is Associate Professor in the department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna. Her research in Austria, Israel and in the US concentrates on Jewish theatre and drama. She also works in the fields of interculturality, 19th century, inter-war, and contemporary theatre and drama. 'Verloschene Sterne': Geschichte des jüdischen Theaters in Wien (Extinguished Stars: History of the Jewish Theatre in Vienna) was published in 1998. In 2001 Dalinger and Thomas Soxberger edited 'Abisch Meisels' Von Sechistow bis Amerika: Fun ssechistow biz amerika – A rewi in 15 bilder, in Yiddish and German. Quellenedition zur Geschichte des jüdischen Theaters in Wien was published in 2003 at the Max Niemeyer publishing house in Tübingen, Germany.

Email Address: brigitte.dalinger@univie.ac.at

Dr. Henrik Eger, tenured professor of English and Communication at DCCC in Media, PA. Born and raised in Germany, studied in Europe and the US. Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1991). Nobel Peace Prize mail translator for Martin Luther King, Jr.; editor of Who's Afraid of Noam Chomsky?. Conducted drama writing workshops for Indian writers and published WriteWrite Rewrite: Surrealistic Stories and Sketches, Dramas, and Dialogues, incl. introductory essay “Can One Learn Creative Writing?” Contributed six entries to Literary Exile in the Twentieth Century: An Analysis and Biographical Dictionary (Greenwood Press), incl. those on Stefan Zweig and Else Lasker-Schüler. Wrote and narrated the first video about AAJT: The World’s Largest Secular Synagogue and Open University (available on Google).

Produced and directed the multilingual "International Shakespeare" performance at the City Literary Institute in London; served as one of ten judges for the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award Program; conceptualized and co-authored the Handbook for Barrymore Nominators and Judges. Member of the Board of Directors for the Media Theatre and Theatre Ariel, the Jewish Theatre of Philadelphia. Wrote Metronome Ticking, a docudrama based on the uncensored letters of his father, a young German WWII Correspondent and Propaganda Officer in occupied France, and the haunting memoirs of the wife of a Holocaust survivor (Dachau and Buchenwald). Eger’s latest play, Mendelssohn Does Not Live Here Anymore, is based on historical documents from Felix Mendelssohn's time and from original Third Reich sources.

Website: www.henrikeger.com

Email Address: eger@aol.com

Jerry Faivish is a lawyer practicing international law in Toronto, Canada. He also archives Jewish Posters and his collection presently consists of over six thousand items relating to all kinds of Jewish topics. He has a unique insight into the world of Jewish theatre as one major subsection of the collection relates to Jewish theatre around the world. His posters have been exhibited throughout Canada and the United States and most recently in an exhibition at the Hebrew University in conjunction with the Steven Spielberg Archives. He works with different museums, academic institutions, community and cultural organizations to further the project and preserve Jewish history.

Email Address: faivishlaw@on.aibn.com

Tovah Feldshuh is an award-winning American actress, singer, and playwright. For her work on the New York stage, from Yentl to Sarava! to Lend Me A Tenor to Golda’s Balcony, Tovah Feldshuh has earned four Tony nominations for Best Actress and won four Drama Desk Awards (including one for Golda’s Balcony), four Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Obie, the Theatre World Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actress (for Golda’s Balcony). She has also appeared in numerous film and television productions. Feldshuh, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, has taught at Yale, Cornell and New York Universities and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in June, 2005. She is a supporter of Seeds Of Peace, a non-profit, non-political organization that helps teenagers from regions of conflict and is the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitas Award and the Israel Peace Medal.

Website: http://www.tovahfeldshuh.com/

Kayla Gordon received her training at the University of Winnipeg, Canada and Banff Centre. She has performed and directed in theatres in Winnipeg as well as other Canadian and US cities. Kayla was the Artistic Director of Winnipeg Jewish Theatre for over 10 years where she produced and directed over forty productions including many new works. She now teaches part-time at the University of Winnipeg Theatre Department and works as a freelance director. She is currently the Executive Director of the Association for Jewish Theatre. AJT is dedicated to promoting the interests of its members in North America and Worldwide whose primary mission is the development and production of plays relevant to Jewish life and values. Ms Gordon received the Young Leadership Award from the University of Jerusalem and she was nominated for the John Hirsch Young Directors award.

Email Address: k-gordon@shaw.ca

Dr. Michal Govrin is an Israeli writer, poet and theatre director. Govrin studied literature and theater at Tel Aviv University and received her Ph.D from the University of Paris. Govrin writes poetry and fiction, and is also a theatre director, specializing in Jewish theatre and ritual. She teaches drama at the Jerusalem School for Visual Theater, is academic chair of the theatre department at Emunah College, and frequently lectures abroad. Govrin has been awarded the Margalit Prize for Theater Direction (1977), the Tel Aviv Foundation Award for The Making of the Sea, a Chronicle of Interpretation (1984), the Kugel Prize (1998) as well as finalist for the Koret Jewish Book Award (1999) for The Name, the Prime Minister`s Prize (1998) and the ACUM Prize for Snapshots (2003). Govrin has created groundbreaking works of experimental Jewish theatre, including: The Harvest of Folly, based on Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav's tales, with La Companie des Sept Mendiants, in Paris, At The Bloom of Her Days, based on Agnon's novella, in Jerusalem, Variations on the Theme of Morning, The Journey of the Year, That Night's Seder and Gog and Magog, based on M. Buber Hassidic novel and created for the 1994 Israel festival.

Email Address: mgovrin@bezeqint.net

Robbie is a British-born Israeli living in the Galilee, working in professional theatre and as Artist-in-Residence for the MAKOM Israel engagement network. With MAKOM he works with Israeli artists and with North American Jewish arts presenters and educators on weaving honest complex connections to Israeli music, movies, and writing. In the theatre he has performed on London’s West End and throughout the world with his own original plays. Since emigrating to Israel he has taught at theatre schools throughout Israel, directed several plays, and his solo shows have performed throughout Israel, UK, Australia, USA, Canada, and Mexico in English, Hebrew, and Spanish.

Website: www.makomisrael.net, www.robbiegringras.5u.com

Email Address: robbie@gringras.com

Mira Hirsch recently completed a three year term as President of the Association for Jewish Theatre, and currently serves on that organization's executive committee. In 1995, she founded Jewish Theatre of the South, a critically-acclaimed professional theatre company in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to producing regional premieres and seldom-produced plays with Jewish cultural content and universal appeal. She served as Artistic Director of Jewish Theatre of the South for the whole of the company's 13 year history, producing over forty main stage productions, and developing and facilitating the theatre's outreach programs – Project Impact Theatre, and The Senior Ensemble. Hirsch lives in Atlanta with her husband, Keith Yaeger and their two children. She is currently working as a freelance artist - acting, directing, and teaching with a number of professional theatre companies and educational institutions.

Email Address: smirahirsch@gmail.com

Dr. Ioan Holban was born in 1954 in Falticeni, Romania. He has published many volumes of literary analysis, including Contemporary Epic Structures (1987), The Parlour of the Refused Ones (1993), and Contemporary Literary Portraits: An Introduction to the History of Literature Today (2003). In addition, he has published two journals, The Subjective Literature: Intimate Journal, Literary Autobiography (1989) and World's Gate: Intimate Journal from China (1999.) Since 1996 he has been General Manager of the "V Alecsandri" National Theatre, and he is also Director of the International "Avram Goldfaden" Festival. His doctorate is in philology (1998) and he has been knighted into Romania's Faithful Service Order (2001).

Email Address: tniasi@yahoo.com

Jacobo Kaufmann, stage-director, writer, translator, lecturer and researcher, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He lives in Israel since 1972. An actor since age 9, and a theatre director since age 18, he graduated with honors from the “Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón” in the fields of stage-direction of operas, set and costume design, and theatre administration. Jacobo Kaufmann successfully stages operas, musical and straight theatre, multimedia, radio and TV programs throughout the world, with internationally well-known artists. He has received important prizes, frequently participates in congresses, and is often asked to join the juries of prestigious international competitions. Parallel to these activities, and since a very early age, he works as a lecturer and a journalist. Among his plays, mostly written in Spanish, three deal with Jewish matters: “Carvajal.El testamento de Joseph Lumbroso” (Carvajal. The testament of Joseph Lumbroso), a drama about Jews under the Mexican Inquisition, “Se acabó la joda” (The fun is over), a dramatic collage on the history and life of the Jews in Argentina, and “Historia de pájaros” (Fowl Play), inspired on a story by Bernard Malamud. Other plays worth mentioning are “El viaje de Lucifer” (Lucipher´s Journey), “Banquete Feroz” (Ferocious Banquet) and “Fábula de un hombre y la gente” (Fable of a man and other people). Jacobo Kaufmann has written two books on composer Jacques Offenbach: “Isaak Offenbach und sein Sohn Jacques” (Isaac Offenbach and his son Jacques), in German, and “Jacques Offenbach en España, Italia y Portugal” (Jacques Offenbach in Spain, Italy and Portugal), in Spanish. He has also published “Synagogue Melodies” by Isaac and Jacques Offenbach. He has translated into Spanish all of the plays by Antonio José da Silva (O Judeu), the most important Portuguese 18th. Century playwright murdered by the Inquisition, and “The Dybbuk” by Shlomo An-Ski, as well as numerous plays and operas into several other languages, including Hebrew.

Website: www.jacobokaufmann.com

Email Address: vn18548@netvision.net.il

Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is Professor of Performance Studies at New York University, where she is also Affiliated Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Her many awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Getty Research Institute fellowship, Winston Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University, and resident research fellowship at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She was designated Distinguished Humanist for 2003 by the Melton Center for Jewish Studies at Ohio State University and in 2008 received a lifetime achievement award in Jewish scholarship from the Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Mlotek Prize for Yiddish and Yiddish Culture. She is co-convening the Working Group on Jews, Religion, and Media at New York University's Center for Religion and Media, New York University, with Jeffrey Shandler, and the Jews and Performance colloquium, jointly sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary and New York University, with Edna Nahshon. She is currently leads the core exhibition development team for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Her books include Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939 (with Lucjan Dobroszycki); Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Heritage; The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times, co-edited with Jonathan Karp; and Writing a Modern Jewish History: Essays in Honor of Salo W. Baron, which won a 2007 National Jewish Book Award. Her most recent book,They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust, in collaboration with her father, was a finalist for the 2008 National Jewish Book Award.

Website: http://www.mayerjuly.com, http://www.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/web/

Email Address: bkg@nyu.edu

Volker Kühn entered radio and TV by way of journalism. He spent four years in the USA, and in Frankfurt while editor at the Hessischer Rundfunk he wrote and produced a satirical program for more than 10 years. Since 1970 Volker Kühn has been a freelance author and director, responsible for many radio plays and features, stage plays, cabaret programs, musicals, TV shows. He wrote five volumes and a TV documentary (ZDF) on "100 Years of German Cabaret." Some of his other documentaries explore entertainment under the Third Reich, and cabaret in concentration camps. He has published record collections as well as countless books on cabaret and satire, among them several books on Friedrich Hollaender. His play Marlene, about Marlene Dietrich, has had more than 500 performances. Volker Kühn is a member of PEN and the recipient of several prizes for his work. He lives in Berlin. His latest audio book (“Howling with the wolves – Entertainment and Cabaret under the swastika”) has recently won the “Deutscher Hörbuchpreis 2007” (German audio book prize 2007).

Website: http://www.vauka-berlin.de

Email Address: vauka-berlin@berlin.sireco.net

Prof. Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska is a specialist in the history of theatre in Poland from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries at Lodz University and the Alexander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw. She is the author of Scena obiecana: Teatr polski w Łodzi 1844-1918 (1993) as well as the editor of Teatr żydowski w Polsce (1998) and, most recently, of Wojciech Bogusławski i jego późne prawnuki (2007). She serves on the editorial board of Pamiętnik Teatralny and Tygiel Kultury and is also a president of the Polish Society of Theater Historians.

Email Address: iwona.puzio@ispan.pl

Michael Kustow is a writer, producer and cultural activist. He has been associate director variously of the National Theatre and the RSC, and director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. After wide-ranging theatre experience in France and the USA, he became the first arts commissioning editor of Channel 4 in 1982. Since 1990 he has combined producing with writing. His latest book is biography of Peter Brook (Bloomsbury) available in paperback March 2006. Forthcoming are an autobiographical book, and the text for a book of photographs of actors in their dressing-rooms before going on stage.

Website: http://www.bloomsbury.com/michaelkustow/

Email Address: mkustow@globalnet.co.uk

Stewart F. Lane is President & CEO of Stewart F. Lane Productions Int’l Inc., is a four-time Tony Award winner, as Producer, for Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Will Rogers Follies, La Cage Aux Folles and Jay Johnson: The Two and Only. Lane is a member of The League of American Theatres and Producers. He sits on The Board of Advisors for The American Theater Wing, The Times Square Group and is the Chairmen of the Board of Directors of The Theatre Museum. Lane was honored with the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor, Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award, and The Child Development Center of the Hamptons Reach for the Stars Award, and The Boston University Distinguished Alumni Award, among other prestigious awards.

Website: www.mrbroadway.com

Dr. Jeanette Malkin is Senior Lecturer and former Chair of the Theatre Studies Department at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. She is the author of Memory-Theater and Postmodern Drama, published at the University of Michigan Press; and of Verbal Violence in Contemporary Drama: From Handke to Shepard, published by Cambridge University Press. She recently co-edited Jews and the Creation of Modern German Theater, forthcoming at the University of Iowa Press. Her articles have appeared in many academic journals and edited books. In recent years, Dr. Malkin organized and participated in a series of conferences on the theme of German-Jewish performance culture. She heads an international Working Group on Jewish Intercultural Performance which meets yearly at the IFTR conferences (International Federation of Theatre Research) and is on the Editorial Board of a number of theatre journals.

Email Address: jmalkin@mscc.huji.ac.il

Prof. Shmuel Moreh is Emeritus Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Institute of Asian and African Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University. Fellow, Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA, Visiting Professor of Arabic Literature at UC Berkeley, Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA, and the Universities of Bonn (Germany), London University (SOAS), Manchester (UK), Life Member of Clare Hall (Cambridge-England), Helsinki University (Finland), Leiden University (The Netherlands), Oxford-Yarnton (England), Maryland (USA). He was Israel Prize Laureate in 1999 and was awarded the Insignia of the Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland in 1986. Founder and Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq in Israel, Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, Or-Yehuda- Israel; Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of al-Jabarti's Project, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem He is the author of Modern Arabic Poetry 1800-1970 (Leiden, Brill, 1975), Studies in Modern Arabic Prose and Poetry (Leiden, 1988), The Jewish Contribution to Nineteenth-Century Arabic Theatre (with P.C. Sadgrove, Manchester-Oxford, 1996), Hatred of Jews and the Farhud in Iraq (eds. S. Moreh and Z. Yehuda, The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, 1992). Author of several articles in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, Brill) and Encyclopaedia of Arabic Literature (England), including Arab and Jewish playwrights and theatre. Prof. Moreh is the translator and editor of Al-Jabarti's Chronicle of the First Seven Months of the French Occupation of Egypt (1975), Napoleon in Egypt (1993); The Book of Strangers: Medieval Arabic Graffiti on the Theme of Nostalgia (With Prof. Patricia Crone, 2000).

Email Address: samimoreh@yahoo.com

Dr. Edna Nahshon is associate professor of Hebrew at the Jewish Theological Seminary and senior associate of Oxford University's Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Her specialty is Jewish theatre and performance, a subject on which she has spoken and written extensively in both Hebrew and English. Her books include Yiddish Proletarian Theatre: The Art and Politics of the Artef, 1925–1940 (Greenwood, 1998), From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill's Jewish Plays (Wayne State University Press, 2006), Jews and Shoes (Berg Publishers, 2008). She is the editor of a collection of essays titled Jewish Theatre (forthcoming, Brill Academic Publishers), and is currently working (with Prof. Michael Shapiro) on a collection of essays that maps out Jewish responses to The Merchant of Venice. Dr. Nahshon served as the historical adviser to the television project The Life and Death of the Federal Theatre, which aired in October 2003 on PBS. She is a member of NYU's Center for Religion and Media's working group titled "Jews, Media and Religion," and has recently developed its unit on Jewish theatre, with a special section on The Dybbuk. She is coconvener, with Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (Performance Studies, NYU), of a faculty seminar on Jews and Performance, held four times a year at the JTS campus. Dr. Nahshon has received grants and fellowships from YIVO, the Memorial Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Littauer Foundation, and the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford University, where she is senior fellow.

Email Address: ednahshon@jtsa.edu

Prof. Michael Posnick is Director of the Department of Dance & Theatre at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY. He has taught and directed at both graduate and undergraduate levels at Yale and Hunter College, worked with the National Theatre of the Deaf for more than 25 years and served as Artistic Director of Mosaic Theatre at the 92nd Street Y. He also taught at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene ONeill Theatre Center and was a visiting artist with The Lincoln Center Institute. Posnick has directed nearly one hundred theatrical and musical productions at venues which include: The Manhattan Theatre Club, Yale Rep, the 92nd Street Y, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lincoln Center. He was dramaturge with Pilobolus Dance Theatre for Davenen, which premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.and the Joyce Theatre, NY. He has served as Theatre Consultant for the National Foundation for Jewish Culture since 1980. He has translated a number of plays by Israeli playwright, Dani Horowitz, and is co-editor, with Ellen Schiff, of Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays published by University of Texas Press 2005. MFA, Yale Drama School; BA and MS in Education from Yeshiva University.

Email Address: posnickm@mville.edu

Howard Rypp is a Theatre graduate from Toronto's York University, Canada. Founded Nephesh Theatre Company in 1978, the first professional Jewish theatre in Canada, in collaboration with playwright Gabriel Emanuel. In its initial six years, the Company staged over 40 productions, all of which toured around Canada and the US. In 1984, after making aliyah to Israel and relocating the company base to that country. As Nephesh Theatre artistic director, Rypp has produced and directed over 90 productions. The Theatre's current varied repertory comprises 15 plays, (10 in Hebrew and 5 in English) exploring Jewish themes and vital local and universal social, educational and environmental issues. His production of One of a Kind embarks on a coast to coast North American tour including an engagement at Broadway's New Victory Theatre. Recently he returned to his first love-acting- and his one man play he adapted from the classic I B Singer story Gimpel the Fool was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Website: http://www.nepheshtheatre.co.il

Email Address: nephesh@inter.net.il

Prof. Nahma Sandrow is the author of Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater and two award-winning Off Broadway musicals, Vagabond Stars and Kuni-Leml; Kuni-Leml was published and recorded. Another book of hers is God, Man, and Devil: Yiddish Plays in Translation, and she was recently awarded a PEN-Nominated NYSCA Grant to translate more plays. She has contributed to The New York Times, to Modern Drama, and to such references as Cambridge Guide to World Theatre, American Popular Entertainment, and Encyclopedia of New York City. She has lectured under the auspices of the American Society for Theatre Research, Modern Language Association, Smithsonian Institution, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Brown University, Harvard University, etc.

Email Address: nahmas@verizon.net

Prof. Ellen Schiff holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; she is professor emerita at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. She is the author of several books and dozens of chapters in books, essays, articles, reviews, and reference book entries in publications that range from the New York Times to the Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature. She edited the first-ever two-volume anthology of American Jewish plays. Schiff lectures nationally and internationally. She serves as advisor to the Jewish Theatre of Austria and as a consultant on theatre to the Foundation of Jewish Culture in New York.

Email Address: efschiff@aol.com

Israeli playwright, author and director Joshua Sobol has written more than fifty plays. Some of his plays have been translated into many languages, and performed worldwide. His play Ghetto has been performed in leading theatres throughout the world and won many awards, including The Evening Standard and The London Critics Theatre Award for Best Play of the Year. It also won three Best Play Awards in Japan. In Israel Sobol received the David's Harp Award for "Playwright of the Year" five times. Sobol directed productions in Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the US. He has been teaching and conducting drama workshops at the universities of Tel Aviv and Beer Sheva in Israel, and at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His first novel Silnece appeared in Israel in 2000, in Germany in 2001 and in Holland in 2002. His second novel Whisky Is Fine appeared in Israel and in Germany in 2005.

Website: http://www.alma-mahler.at/engl/sobol/sobol.html

Email Address: josobol@netvision.net.il

Lena Stanley-Clamp is the founder and Director of the European Association for Jewish Culture, London, which commissions and promotes new work in the performing and visual arts in Europe. She is also Director for Public Activities at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR). Born in Prague, she was educated in Warsaw and graduated in History and Slavonic Languages from Brussels University. She has been a contributor to Jewish Renaissance and Encyclopaedia Judaica Yearbooks and is editor of EAJC Review. She programmed and organized a number of international conferences: "Planning for the Future of European Jewry", Prague 1995; "Strengthening Jewish Life in Europe", Strasbourg 1997; "Jewish Culture for the 21st Century", Paris 1999; "Jewish Identities in post-Communist Europe", Budapest 2000; "Jewish Spaces in European Theatre", Prague 2003. She collaborated on "The Future of Jewish Heritage in Europe" conference, 2004. She is a Council Member of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford and a member of the International Council on Museums, UK.

Website: www.jewishcultureineurope.org, www.jpr.org.uk

Email Address: lstanley-clamp@jpr.org.uk

Dov Winer is a psychologist (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) that specializes in Online Education and Training (University of London). He is the founder and board member of the Israel Internet Association (http://www.isoc.org.il). In 1988 he proposed the establishment of the Global Jewish Information Network; having obtained the support of the Knesset and the Ministry of Communication he carried out the detailed planning of the network (1991/92). Later he lead several initiatives in this area: the Observatory of Jewish Resources in the Internet; the Virtual Zionist Congress; the Seminar "Israel 2020 - Israel/Diaspora Relations and Strategic Planning for Israel" (Master Plan for Israel in the 21st Century - The Technion and the Jewish Agency). At the request of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, he became, in July 2001, director of the eJewish.info project for Developing Jewish Networking Infrastructures (http://www.ejewish.info/reka).

Dov is active in several initiatives of the European Commission: EUMEDIS Focal Point for the development of the Information Society in the Mediterranean (http://eumedis.org.il); NCP for Israel in the EUN (European Schoolnet - http://www.eun.org) and related projects: ETB - European Learning Resources (http://etb.eun.org); CELEBRATE, creating a market for Learning Objects (http://celebrate.eun.org); eSchola (http://eschola.org.il) and Netdays Europe in Israel (http://netdays.org.il).

Email Address: dovw@savion.huji.ac.il

Prof. Seth Wolitz is the Gale Chair of Jewish Studies and professor of French, Slavic and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, Austin. Prof. Wolitz received his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. at Yale University. He is a specialist in twentieth-century Jewish and European literature and has also published on medieval Provencal literature and contemporary Brazilian poetry. His major work for the past twenty years has been the recovery and appreciation of modern Yiddish literature in its European context. He has published widely on the modernist movement in Yiddish. He has written the lead articles for the two major exhibition catalogs of modern Jewish art in Jerusalem and New York. Current research: Modernism and Minorities: The Yiddish Case. Current work: Catalogues of Russian-Jewish Art (Jerusalem/New York), shows in New York City, Jerusalem, and Amsterdam.

Email Address: slwolitz@mail.utexas.edu