Judah M. Cohen is the Lou & Sybil Mervis Professor of Jewish Culture and Professor of Musicology at Indiana University. He has authored The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor: Musical Authority, Cultural Investment (2009), Sounding Jewish Tradition: The Music of Central Synagogue (2011), and Jewish Religious Music in Nineteenth Century America (2019). His current work explores Musical Theater, Jewish music in the 1950s, and the life of Debbie Friedman.