HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Rabbi David Saperstein, who spoke in Huntsville in 2007 on the roots of Jewish social justice during a summit organized by the Interfaith Mission Service, has been nominated by President Obama as U.S. ambassador for religious freedom.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a confirmation most expect to be perfunctory, Saperstein will be the first non-Christian to hold the post, which was created by President Bill Clinton in 1998. The ambassador is charged with heading the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom.

Saperstein's nomination has been praised by Russell Moore, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and by Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, who will himself be lecturing in Huntsville in November 2014 as a guest of the Interfaith Mission Service.