Ellie Ash

Ellie Ash is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Religious Parenting in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis project. Her research focuses on lived religion in the United States, especially Judaism, and she is particularly interested in religious and cultural liberalism, religious authority, and how culture works. At RAAC, she is enjoying the opportunity to learn more about mainline Christianity directly from practitioners and to think deeply about religious transmission, pluralism, and choice. She is also working on a book, titled Halakhic Humanism: Authority and Culture in a Liberal Observant Jewish Community, which explores how practitioners draw on different sources of authority and cultural influence as they bring together traditional Jewish ritual law and socially liberal values. Ellie earned her master’s degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago and her PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University.