Elias Sacks, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Associate Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, was recently awarded a Provost Faculty Achievement Award, which is presented to selected faculty members who have offered recent significant publications orcreative contributions in their academic fields. The award committee singled out his recent book(2017) for its commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship. In recent months, Sacks also traveled to Jerusalem to speak at the Seventeenth World Congress of Jewish Studies and delivered the annual Lenni Sassower Lecture at the Center for Religious Diversity and Public Life at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, addressing the topic“Can Jews Be Citizens? Jewish Politics from the Enlightenment to Today.”Additionally, Sacks published an essay on the Oxford University Press blog entitled “,” reflecting on Mendelssohn’s legacy in 2017 America, and offered several classes through the CU «Ƶ Peak to PeakLecture Series, a program that brings humanities scholars to communities around Colorado.