The Search for God at Harvard

"Enriching...A well-written, absorbing depiction of a fascinating school." THE BOSTON GLOBE In 1985, Ari L. Gldman took a year's leave from his job as a religion reporter for THE NEW YORK TIMES and enrolled in the Harvard Divnity School. What began as a project to deepen his knowledge of world religion became an extraordinary journey of spiritual illumination. Written with warmth, humor, and penetrating clarity, Goldman describes his extraordinary year, the surprising and enlightening students and teachers, he met, and his ongoing quest to determine what it means to take religion seriously today. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

Ari L. Goldman, one of the nation’s leading religion journalists, is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was educated at Yeshiva University, Columbia, and Harvard. At Columbia, he teaches the popular “Covering Religion” seminar that in recent years has taken students to Israel, Jordan, Russia, Ukraine, and India. Through his teaching and his travels, Goldman has taught a whole generation of religion writers. He has been a Fulbright professor in Israel, a Skirball fellow at Oxford University in England, and a scholar-in-residence at Stern College for Women. He served on the boards of several organizations, including the Jewish Book Council, the Covenant Foundation, and the Congregation Ramath Orah, an Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side. In addition to The Search for God at Harvard, he is the author of Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today and a memoir, Living a Year of Kaddish. He occasionally contributes articles and reviews to the New York Times, among other publications. He lives in New York City with his wife, Shira Dicker, and their three children, Adam, Emma, and Judah.