Samuel C. Heilman is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and holds the Harold M. Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies and Sociology at the City University of New York. He is also on the faculty of Queens College, CUNY. Heilman is the author of When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son (California, 2002), winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the Koret Jewish Book Award; Defenders of the Faith (California, 1999); and Synagogue Life (1998), among other books.