Israel Bettan (1889-1957) was Professor of Midrash and Homiletics at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Chair of its Responsa Committee. Author of Studies in Jewish Preaching in the Middle Ages (1939), The Five Scrolls (1950).

David Ellenson is President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and I. H. and Anna Grancell Professor of Jewish Religious Thought at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, California on whose faculty he has been since 1979. He is the author of numerous essays on Jewish thought and has contributed to a multi-volume commentary on the prayer book. His books include Tradition in Transition (1989), Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy (1990), Between Tradition and Culture: The Dialectics of Modern Jewish Religion and Identity (1994) After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (2007).

Solomon B. Freehof (1893-1990) was Rabbi of the Rodef Shalom Congregation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Past President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the World Union for Progressive Judaism; he was past Chair of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the author of twenty-six books including eight volumes of responsa, Stormers of Heaven (1931), Modern Jewish Preaching (1941), Preface to Scripture (1950), Reform Jewish Practice (1947, 1952), The Responsa Literature (1955), The Book of Job (1958), A Treasury of Responsa (1963), New Reform Responsa (1980), Today’s Reform Responsa (1990).

Walter Jacob is President of the Abraham Geiger College in Berlin/Potsdam; Senior Scholar of Rodef Shalom Congregation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; President of the Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah and the Associated American Jewish Museums. Author, editor, or translator of thirty-six books including Christianity through Jewish Eyes (1974), American Reform Responsa (1983), The Pittsburgh Platform in Retrospect (1985), Liberal Judaism and Halakhah (1988), The Second Book of the Bible: Exodus Interpreted by Benno Jacob (1992), Die Exegese hat das erste Wort (2002), Pursuing Peace Across the Alleghenies (2005), Hesed and Tzedakah - From the Bible to Modernity (2006); Napoleon’s Influence on Jewish Law (2007), and more than twelve hundred published essays and sermons.

 Peter Knobel is President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, rabbi of Beth Emet, Evanston, Illinois. He is chair of the Liturgy Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and past president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. He is the author of papers on assisted suicide, homosexuality, and spirituality among other subjects; he is editor of Gates of the Season (1983), Duties of the Soul: The Role of Commandments in Liberal Judaism (1999), and the new American Reform prayer book.

Daniel Schiff is rabbi of the Agency for Jewish Learning in Pittsburgh. He is rabbi of Temple B’nai Israel in White Oak, Pennsylvania. Born in Australia, he was educated at the University of Melbourne and the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion from which he was ordained and received his doctorate. Daniel Schiff is the author of essays on halakhic topics and of Abortion in Judaism (2002), a study that deals with this question across denominational lines.

Ariel Stone is Rabbi of Congregation Shir Tikvah in Portland, Oregon. Earlier while serving the Progressive congregation in Kiev, she also led services at the city’s Karaite synagogue. Her research has included the Karaites, heresy in Talmudic Judaism, and bioethics.

Moshe Zemer is Director of the Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah. He is a founder of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel and founding rabbi of the Kedem Synagogue-Bet Daniel, Tel Aviv. He is Av Bet Din of the Israel Council of Progressive Rabbis and Senior Lecturer in Rabbinic at Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem. He has also contributed numerous articles on halakhah in the Israeli press and scientific journals. He is author of The Sane Halakhah (1993).