Jack Wertheimer is the Joseph and Martha Mendelson Professor of American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  His area of specialization is modern Jewish history, with a particular focus on trends in the religious, educational, and organizational sectors of American Jewish life since World War II.  Dr. Wertheimer is the author or editor of more than a dozen volumes, including Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (Oxford, 1987); The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed (Cambridge, 1987); The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (JTS and Harvard, 1993); and The Modern Jewish Experience—a Reader’s Guide (NYU, 1993). From 1997 through 2007 he served as provost of JTS, the Seminary’s chief academic officer. He also served from 1987 through 2008 as the founding director of the Joseph and Miriam Ratner Center for the Study of Conservative Judaism, which preserves the records of rabbis, synagogues, and organizations affiliated with the Conservative movement and promotes research on its history and contemporary condition.