Ted Merwin, Ph.D is a professor, writer, journalist and noted public speaker. He is a sought-after lecturer on the history of Jewish food. He is the author of In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture, as well as of a forthcoming book on the history of the Jewish delicatessen, Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Delicatessen.
For an interview with Ted by the L.A. Times, please visit:
For an article about Ted's visit to the Department of Homeland Security at JFK airport, please visit:
For Ted's blog post about tongue, please visit:
For a podcast of one of Ted's lectures on the deli in pop culture, courtesy of NPR in Chicago, please visit deli lecture in Chicago.
For a podcast of one of Ted's lectures on the history of Jewish food,
For a video clip from one of Ted's lectures on Seinfeld, from an appearance at the New School in New York, please visit Seinfeld lecture in New York.
In addition to numerous scholarly articles on American Jewish food and culture, Ted has published journalistic articles in the New York Times (Arts and Leisure), Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Haaretz, Forward, Moment, Hadassah, and many other newspapers and magazines across the English-speaking world.
For the last thirteen years, Ted has penned a weekly theater column for the New York Jewish Week, the largest-circulation Jewish newspaper in the nation. (He has published more than 600 columns to date.) He also now writes a bimonthly "back of the book" culture column for the same paper.
Ted teaches religion & Judaic studies at Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA), where he is also the founding director of the Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life. He lives in Harrisburg, PA (3 hours from NYC; 2 hours from Philly and D.C., 75 minutes from Baltimore) with his wife (author Andrea Lieber) and three daughters.
