Ari Kelman

Ari Y. Kelman is the Jim Joseph Professor of Education and Jewish Studies and Associate Professor in the Stanford Graduate School of Education, holding a courtesy appointment as Associate Professor of Religious Studies. He received a BA in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1994 and a PhD in American Studies from New York University in 2003. Before arriving at Stanford in 2012, Kelman served as Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis from 2009 to 2011 and Assistant Professor there from 2006 to 2009. He was Scholar-in-Residence at the American Jewish Historical Society from 2005 to 2006 and Historian at the National Museum of American Jewish History from 2003 to 2005. At Stanford, he directs the Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies, the Undergraduate Honors in Education Thesis Program, BJPA@Stanford, and serves as Associate Director of American Religions in a Global Context. He is an affiliate of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, the American Studies Program, and Core Faculty in the Center for Jewish Studies. Kelman also served as Interim Director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies from 2017 to 2018.

Kelman’s research centers on the forms and practices of religious knowledge transmission, with a focus on American Jewry, exploring topics such as Yiddish radio, Evangelical worship music, Jewish online learning, release time programs, religious dictionaries, Jewish identity and ritual, Google algorithms on religion, Jewish students and antisemitism, citational research networks, and campus chaplaincy. His books include Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio (University of California Press, 2009), Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America (NYU Press, 2018), Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader (editor, NYU Press, 2010), Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (co-author, Alban Institute, 2011), and Beyond Jewish Identity (co-editor, Academic Studies Press, 2019). Key articles include “American Judaism in the Twenty-First Century” (2025), “Jewish Education” (2024), and “The Other Dual Curriculum: Jewish Community High School Students' Reflections on What Counts as ‘Jewish’ Learning” (2023). Kelman edits Jewish Social Studies, chairs the Network for Research in Jewish Education, and teaches courses such as Understanding Jews, IDEAS Seminar, and Learning Religion: How People Acquire Religious Commitments.

Professional Email: aykelman@stanford.edu