Noted historian and author Gary P. Zola, whose works include a book on President Lincoln and American Jewry, spoke at the second annual Rabbi Hillel Cohn Endowed Lecture, which works to enhance an understanding of different cultures and religions, and to celebrate the Jewish contribution to society.

Zola’s talk, “He was one of us: The Judaization of Abraham Lincoln,” was held at the university’s Santos Manuel Student Union Events Center on March 13.

Zola is a historian of American Jewry who specializes in the development of American Reform Judaism. His published volumes include: “We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History,” “The Americanization of the Jewish Prayer Book and The Liturgical Development of Congregation Ahawath Chesed, New York City,” “A Place of Our Own: The Rise of Reform Jewish Camping in America” (co-edited with Michael M. Lorge), “The Dynamics of American Jewish History: Jacob Rader Marcus’s Essays on American Jewry,” “Women Rabbis: Exploration and Celebration,” and “Isaac Harby of Charleston,” a major biographical study on the life of one of the founders of the first organized effort to reform Judaism in the United States.

Zola is the executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and the Edward M. Ackerman Family Distinguished Professor of the American Jewish Experience and Reform Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati.

Cohn, the lecture’s namesake, has been active in many San Bernardino-area organizations, served as rabbi of Congregation Emanu El in San Bernardino from 1963 to 2001, and returned to lead the congregation from 2014-15, while the congregation sought a new rabbi.

Cohn has also been active in many community organizations in the San Bernardino area. He now serves on the Institutional Review Board at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. He serves as a member of the Diocesan Health Care Committee of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino. He was the founding chairperson of the City of San Bernardino Human Relations Commission, and currently serves as a member of that commission.

In 2014, Cohn was one of six inductees selected for the CSUSB College of Social and Behavioral College’s Hall of Fame.

For more information on the Rabbi Hillel Cohn Endowed Lecture on the Contemporary Jewish Experience, contact the CSUSB Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit inside.csusb.edu.