Michael R. Cohen is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University, where he holds a Sizeler Professorship. He is the author of the newly published"Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era from NYU Press, as well as The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement from Columbia University Press.  He earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University.