Speaker Profile Dr. Nathan Katz

NATHAN KATZ, Ph.D.

Dr. Nathan Katz is a Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, in the School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University where he was FIU’s founding chair of the Department of Religious Studies, director of Jewish Studies, and the Bhagawan Mahavir Professor of Jain Studies.

Arguably the world’s leading scholar on Indian Jewish communities, Dr. Katz is the author of 15 books, including the award-winning Who Are the Jews of India? and with his wife Ellen Goldberg, The Last Jews of Cochin: Jewish Identity in Hindu India. The rare scholar who has mastered two distinct fields, South Asian Studies and Jewish Studies, he received his Ph.D. with Distinction in Religion from Temple University.

He has been awarded four Fulbright grants, was a Shalom Hartman Institute Fellow, and was recognized as a “Master Teacher” by the Florida Humanities Council.

Currently, Dr. Katz serves as Academic Dean of the Chaim Yakov Shelomo College of Jewish Studies and teaches regularly at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram Bahamas and Hindu University of America in Orlando. He and Ellen have been leading educational travel programs in South Asia since 1980.