An interview with Miriam Alexander When Neil Alexander sent in his harrowing story of visiting his daughter Miriam as the US-Israel-Iran began, I wanted to hear more of Miriam’s story. I interviewed her via email March 10–12. Miriam Alexander, a graduate of the Ann Arbor Hebrew Day School, holds an MA in Jewish Studies from…
Interview by Ellen C. Schwartz Daryl Hafter was born in New Jersey and grew up on the east and west coasts. She earned a BA from Smith College and later received a PhD in French history from Yale. She taught in the Department of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University for 35 years, retiring…
Haviva Ner-David and Grace Sherman interviewed by Michael Appel Haviva Ner-David and Grace Sherman live in the Jezreel Valley region of northern Israel and are active in the Israeli protest movement. When I learned of their regular presence at the Tzomet Nahalal (Nahalal Junction) protest site, I reached out to interview them. Moshav Nahalal is…
Idelle Hammond-Sass interviews Rabbi Adina Allen of the Jewish Studio Project In response to the unfathomable events of October 7 I was struggling to digest the daily news, meetings, podcasts, articles, Zooms, emails, and conversation. The exhausting flood of information left me grasping for ways to cope so I could engage with the ongoing conflict….
Interviewed by Meg Bernstein, special to the WJN Even in the calmest of seasons, it is no small task to move your family a great distance and begin a new job as the rabbi of a congregation that, in recent years, has been through many transitions. And with the waning weeks of Av tumbling headlong…
An interview by Rebecca Nieubuurt, Congregation-Based Social Worker Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County Rabbi Chelsea Feuchs joins the clergy team at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor after being ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. A graduate of Brown University, Rabbi Chelsea has worked with the…
By Meg Bernstein Michal Raucher is an associate professor of Jewish Studies and the undergraduate director for the department at Rutgers University. She holds a PhD from Northwestern in Religious Studies, as well as a master’s degree in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2020, Dr. Raucher published a book on her ethnographic studies…
Hannah Davis interviews Andrew Lapin and Andy Kirshner It may be something in the air. Two local creators are releasing pieces of media profiling prominent figures, who were also antisemites, in American history from the early 1900s. Andy Kirshner is an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design and the…
Gabrielle Pescador, special to the WJN Rabbi Miriam Geronimus, who grew up and lived in Ann Arbor until graduating high school, became a rabbi on May 23 at the 49th commencement ceremony of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College outside Philadelphia. In her early years Geronimus attended the Jewish Cultural Society, the Secular Humanistic Jewish congregation in…
Emily Eisbruch, special to the WJN Sam Bagenstos and Margo Schlanger recently had a major transition in their lives as they relocated, for the time being, from Ann Arbor to Washington, D.C. Sam is serving as general counsel for the Office and Management and Budget in the new Biden/Harris administration. Margo continues her work, remotely,…