The School of Education appointed Ari Y. Kelman the inaugural Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies, a position and concentration funded by a $12 million gift from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the largest gift in the history of the School of Education.

Kelman was previously a professor in American studies at the University of California-Davis, where he was a leading scholar in contemporary Jewish life, with an emphasis on ethnic identity, media and American religious culture. Kelman will lead the new School of Education concentration in education and Jewish studies.

“Kelman’s appointment strengthens ongoing work at Stanford on the interactions of religion, ethnicity, identity and education and may well prefigure future growth in this area,” said Lee Shulman, Charles E. Ducommun professor emeritus of education, in a press release.

Kelman will design the new concentration and facilitate collaboration between the School of Education and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.

Kelman is the author of “Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio” and the editor of “Sacred Strategies” and “Is Diss a System?: a Milt Gross Comic Reader.”

-Margaret Rawson