Matthew Kaufman received an MA and a PHD in Humanities from York University (2017), and an MAHL and rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (1998). His intellectual biography of American Jewish philosopher Horace M. Kallen, Horace Kallen Confronts America (Syracuse University Press, 2019), traces Kallen’s outsized influence on American Jewish identity and how he helped to shape mid-twentieth century American liberal values. Kaufman’s scholarship focuses on the historic interaction of science and religion in the Anglophone world – especially during the Victorian era – which he explores in his contribution to The Bible in the Age of Empire: A Cultural History (Bloomsbury Press, 2024). He is the rabbi of Congregation Kehillat Israel in Lansing.