Meet Judy Dornstreich, a Jewish organic farmer with a deep spiritual background and rich take on life. In this life, Judy has been blessed with a beautiful family, including her late husband, a fellow anthropologist. They began a journey living in isolated New Guinea and traveled the world dancing to the beat of many styles of music. While a Jewish South Philly girl at heart, Judy has explored not just the world but many facets of spirituality and has had teachers from many spiritual traditions, including Swami Chinmayananda, teacher of Vedanta.

Judy has worked as a yoga teacher for 50 years and as a Counseling Psychologist in sheltered workshops. Today, she continues to share discussions on spiritual living, including her upcoming talk Spiritual Musings of a Jewish Farmer with Kehilat HaNahar, sharing her story with their stimulating and lively Jewish community. (To register for this event call 215-862-1912.)

Judy and her late husband began a successful organic farm in Bucks County, PA, and they have been mentioned in Kosmos journal and the Inquirer for their accomplishments. Read more about their story here:

"Really, how did a couple of Ivy League-educated Jewish intellectuals wind up in one of the hardest jobs on the planet? It started as a college romance."

 

Jeffery D. Long is Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, in Pennsylvania, where he has taught since receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He has authored, among other works, Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds (2020), Jainism: An Introduction (2009), and, with Michael Long, Nonviolence in the World’s Religions: A Concise Introduction (2021).

In 2021, he received the Ranck Award for Research Excellence from Elizabethtown College, and in 2022, an Ahimsa Award from the International Ahimsa Foundation for his work to promote nonviolence through his scholarship. In 2022, he also received the Rajinder and Jyoti Gandhi Award for Excellence in Philosophy and Theology from DANAM (Dharma Academy of America) for Hinduism in America. He has spoken at a variety of significant venues, including three talks at the United Nations. He is the editor of the Lexington Books series Explorations in Indic Traditions: Ethical, Philosophical, and Theological.

Christopher Denny is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in New York, where since 2004 he has taught as a historical theologian in undergraduate and graduate classes. Denny has been an Associate Editor of the CTS journal Horizons since 2016, after a previous term as a book review editor for the journal.

In addition to serving as a member of the CTS board, he has also served on the board of the American Academy of Religion and as the Executive Director of the AAR's Mid-Atlantic Region. In 2017, he was a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Dayton.

Denny is the author of A Generous Symphony: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Literary Revelations and the co-editor of: A Realist's Church; Empowering the People of God: Catholic Action before and after Vatican II; and Finding Salvation in Christ. His recent published essays have appeared in the Journal of Interreligious Studies, Christianity and Literature, and the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies. Denny is the recipient of best-article awards from the CTS, the Catholic Press Association, and the Conference on Christianity and Literature. Since 2020, he has served as the president of the Faculty Association at St. John's University, a union representing a collective bargaining unit of over 1300 full-time and part-time faculty members.

Ray Silverman is a Professor of Religion and English at Bryn Athyn College and is the author of The Core of Johnny Appleseed: The Untold Story of a Spiritual Trailblazer, the introduction to Helen Keller's How I Would Help The World, and editor of Helen Keller's spiritual autobiography, Light In My Darkness.

In 2000, Ray and his wife, Star, published Rise Above It: Spiritual Development Through the Ten Commandments, which became a textbook for college religion classes. Several years later, they published a new edition, Rise Above It: Spiritual Development for College Students, based on 18 years of teaching Rise Above It courses to college students. 

Ray is currently completing A Seamless Garment: A Study of the Four Gospels as a Divinely Arranged Narrative- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the first ten chapters of John are available until publication. 

Jonathan Weidenbaum teaches courses in philosophy, world religions, ethics, and bioethics at Berkeley College in NYC and St John’s University in Queens. He writes and publishes in the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of humor, among other topics. He is a passionate traveler and adores the international character of his students as well as the city in general.

Jeanine Diller, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo with a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan. Dr. Diller teaches and researches in philosophy of religion, ethics and religious studies. She recently published “God and Other Ultimates” in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and has authored and co-edited other publications about the nature of ultimate reality, atheism and agnosticism, and interreligion. She serves on the editorial board of Religious Studies and the steering committee for Theology Without Walls. Jeanine has also worked in the federal legislative, state executive, and non-profit sectors.