Michael R. Cohen

Michael Cohen is a Professor and chair of Jewish Studies at Tulane University, where he holds a Sizeler Professorship. He earned his A.B. with honors from Brown University and his Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He is the author of Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era (New York University Press, 2017), The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement (Columbia University Press, 2012), as well as several articles. He is currently co-editing the forthcoming Handbook of American Jewish History.

Professor Cohen lectures widely throughout the country and across the globe, including cities such as London, Sydney, Cape Town, New York, Tokyo, and Jerusalem. He chairs the Association for Jewish Studies' Directors Group and is chair of its Modern Jewish History in the Americas Division. Cohen is on the Executive Committee of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, an academic advisory board member for the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture, a board member of the Southern Jewish Historical Society, and he has served as a scholar-in-residence for American Jewish Archives programs.