The Eastern Michigan University Center for Jewish Studies is excited to announce that it is bringing Professor Samira Mehta to Southeastern Michigan. Professor Mehta is author of Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States, which was published in 2018 with the University of North Carolina Press, and The Racism of People Who…
By Leonore Mohill Gerstein Ann Arbor friends of Torat Tzedek’s Rabbi Arik Ascherman invite the community to learn about his current projects on Sunday, January 25. Rabbi Ascherman will join us on Zoom. In recent months, our anguish over the catastrophic events of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent years of war in Gaza has…
By Esther Greenfield Jakar and Orit Aviran Technology is everywhere in our children’s world, and the easy answer would be to block apps and set strict screen time limits. But real resilience doesn’t come from restrictions — it comes from helping students understand what they’re encountering online and how to navigate it thoughtfully. At Hebrew…
By Deborah Meyers Greene The Ann Arbor Jewish community has a special opportunity to welcome Shahanna McKinney Baldon, a recognized leader and cultural producer in the movement for visibility for Jews of Color, for a weekend residency on January 24 and 25. McKinney Baldon will participate in Shabbat services and deliver a public lecture, inviting…
Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land, by Rachel Cockerell, reviewed by Ann S. Epstein If we cannot get the Holy Land, we can make another land holy. (Israel Zangwill, 1906) So begins Melting Point, Rachel Cockerell’s account of the search for a Jewish homeland. The story is a family saga;…
By Shayla Mostyn This year marks 13 years of Jewish academia at Eastern Michigan University. EMU’s Center for Jewish Studies provides Jewish students, staff, and faculty with a space for their voices to be heard and for unique educational opportunities to be explored. In addition to offering a Jewish Studies minor, advanced undergraduate research opportunities,…
By Esther J. Terry A version of this article was delivered as a d’var Torah at the Ann Arbor Orthodox Minyan on November 8, 2025/17 Cheshvan 5786. Seven years ago, the 18th of Cheshvan fell on October 27 in the Gregorian calendar. The parashah that morning was Vayeira, which includes both the birth of Yitzchak…
By Murray Rosenthal Genesis of Ann Arbor, a long-standing equal partnership between Temple Beth Emeth and St. Clare’s Episcopal Church, has taken another bold step toward sustainability by expanding its solar energy system. Genesis’s original installation consisted of 160 panels which were mounted on the south-facing roof of the office building and the flat social…
By Steve Merritt Nicaragua is a poor place with problematic politics where it is hard enough to survive, let alone be a Jew. Life is a balancing act. And yet, the people I met there on my visit in July were determined to hold onto their Jewish identity and build community. I connected with the…
The highly acclaimed 2023 documentary, Nathan-ism, examines the fraught relationships between art and life as well as memory and history. This film follows Nathan Hilu, the son of Syrian Jewish immigrants to New York, who, at the end of World War II, received a life-changing assignment from the U.S. Army: to guard the top Nazi…