Rachael Kohn

Rachael Kohn (born 1953) is an Australian author and broadcaster who since 1992 has presented and produced programs on Religion and Spirituality for ABC Radio National, beginning with Religion Report, Religion Today, and since 1997, The Spirit of Things. She has also produced award winning features for Encounter as well as two part television documentaries on The Dead Sea Scrolls (2000) and on Buddhism East and West (2001) as well as Paws for Thought on animals and spirituality for Compass on ABC TV. The Spirit of Things is heard across Australia each Sunday at 18:05PM AEST and Tuesday at 13:05 and Wednesday at 02.05 and online at www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings. For 6 years (ending in January 2009) Kohn also was Producer and Presenter of The Ark on Radio National which focused on Religious History. Kohn is a popular speaker on Religion and Spirituality in Australia and she has published two books, The New Believers: Re-imagining God (HarperCollins 2004) and Curious Obsessions in the History of Science and Spirituality (ABC Books, now HarperCollins 2007).

Rachael Kohn was born in Canada. Originally from Slovakia, her father and mother (from Bohemia) fled the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia to settle in Israel in 1949, moving to Canada in 1952. (Her father was a passenger on the ill fated Pentcho which left Bratislava in 1939 and was shiprwrecked in the Aegean Sea in 1940, after which the passengers were rescued by the Italians and eventually taken to the Ferramonti Di Tarsi internment camp in the Consenza Province, Italy.) Kohn was awarded a Diploma in Social Work from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, then achieved an Hon.B.A. in Sociology and Religion at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Rachael then earned an M.A. (Rabbinic Thought and the New Testament) and a Ph.D. (Sociology and History of Religion) in Religious Studies from Canada's McMaster University. For both degrees she also studied Buddhism. She taught religious studies at McMaster University in Canada, at Lancaster University in England, where she was Leverhulme Post-Doctoral Fellow in Religious Studies. She also taught Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo, and then at the University of Sydney (1988–1992). Moving to Australia after marrying an Australian man, she then joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 1992.

Rachael Kohn has published two books, The New Believers: Re-imagining God (HarperCollins 2004) and Curious Obsessions in the History of Science and Spirituality (ABC Books, now HarperCollins 2007). She has published numerous articles, chapters, and essays in books, journals and newspapers and on the ABC Religion and Ethics website. Recent publications include, 'Saints and Saintliness in Judaism' in In the Land of Larks and Heroes: Australian Reflections on Saint Mary MacKillop (ATF Press 2010); 'Jewish Thought and the Theory of Evolution' in Darwin on Evolution (ATF Press 2010) and 'Jews and Violence' in Validating Violence, Violating Faith? (ATF Press 2007); 'The Aging Spirit' in Ageing and Spirituality Across Faiths and Cultures (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, UK 2010), as well as "Is Jewish Thought Unique" in the Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 2010. She has written on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Future of Religion, the Future of Judaism, Happiness, Aging, Education, Interfaith Relations, Cults.

In 2000, Kohn won the New York Festivals' International Radio Competition World Gold Medal for the documentary In God We Trust: Civil and Uncivil Religion in America.

Also in 2000, Kohn was listed as one of Australia's leading 100 Australians by the national newspaper, The Australian.

In 2002, Kohn won the New York Festivals' World Gold Medal for the documentary Coffee, Sex, & Other Addictions: New Age Health in the 19th Century.

In 2004, Kohn won the New York Festivals' World Gold Medal for the documentary The Monk & the Modern Girl: A Journey into China's Past & Present.

In 2005, Kohn was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa in 2005 by the Chancellor of the University of New South Wales.

Also in 2005, Rachael Kohn was voted in the top 50 Australian intellectuals in a survey by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

In addition she was received numerous other awards for radio and television documentaries, including "The Dead Sea Scrolls" and "Buddhism East and West".