Shulamit reinharz biography of michael jordan

In Costa Rica, where it is customary to hand-deliver wedding invitations, most of San Jose’s Jewish community was invited to Karen and Michael Bourne’s 2003 wedding. Over 350 attended.

In Nicaragua, Veronica and Kurt Preiss married three times: first, in a civil ceremony, second in a Jewish ceremony not recognized by religious law, and third in conjunction with a conversion organized by Kulanu (“all of us” in Hebrew), an organization that supports isolated, returning and emerging Jewish communities all over the world.

Diana and Lev Pershtein-Lapkis were married by a reform rabbi in Latvia because traditional Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism don’t consider her to be Jewish. Hédi and Michael Fried survived Auschwitz and, despite all odds and an 18-year age difference, married in 1947 in Sweden.

And in Egypt, Esther and Léon Abécassis, the Chief Rabbi of Alexandria and their witnesses had to sign a “single status affidavit” (proof of celibacy) before their wedding at the Great Synagogue of Alexandria in 1934.

These are but five of the 100 stories in local co-editors Barbara Vinick’s and Shulamit Reinharz’s “100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World.” Released on Feb. 6, the book features the first-hand stories of Jewish weddings from six continents that span almost a century.

Written by brides, their relatives, clergy and friends, this collection of personal stories from around the world offers readers a peek through the keyhole at the surprising variety of ways in which the Jewish wedding process can unfold, from the first meeting to the wedding ceremony and beyond.

“100 Brides” is the third cultural project celebrating Jewish womanhood that Vinick and Reinharz have co-edited. “Esther’s Legacy: Celebrating Purim around the World” (2002) examined how Queen Esther’s courage in saving the Jews is observed in different communities. “I Am a Woman: Sto

"Laura Schor provides fascinating insights into the history of education, of women, and of social life in the holy city in the late Ottoman, British Mandatory, and early Israeli periods of rule. This thoroughly researched and admirably readable book paints a vivid picture of half-forgotten aspects of life in Jerusalem a century ago."--Bernard Wasserstein, University of Chicago "Tablet" (1/1/2013 12:00:00 AM) "Laura Schor's The Best School in Jerusalem is an excellent and original piece of scholarship. Schor enriches our understanding of the education of Jewish women in Jerusalem during the late Ottoman and British Mandate period, and the way that the Evelina de Rothschild School and especially headmistress Annie Landau shaped the identities of young Jewish girls. It is a welcomed contribution to the field of Jewish women's history, the history of education, and Jerusalem's social history."--Ela Greenberg, independent scholar and author of Preparing the Mothers of Tomorrow: Islam and Education in Mandate Palestine "Tablet" (1/1/2013 12:00:00 AM) "Schor has written a book that, with its copious notes, index and extensive bibliography, will please academics; at the same time, her literate, yet easy and almost intimate style will delight the lay reader. Her use of contemporary letters, collections, reports, reminiscences and newspaper articles adds a feeling of immediacy to shocking events, such as the Arab riots of 1929, that disrupt life in Jerusalem."-- "Jerusalem Post" "What emerges from Schor's portrait of Landau is a woman with extremely modern, cosmopolitan values and a stubborn desire to have her way."-- "Tablet" Laura Schor provides fascinating insights into the history of education, of women, and of social life in the holy city in the late Ottoman, British Mandatory, and early Israeli periods of rule. This thoroughly researched and admirably readable book paints a vivid picture

By Moment | Jul 28, 2012

Interviews by Moment Staff

Adin Steinsaltz

Jewish peoplehood is always central. It comes before the Jewish nation or the Jewish state. We live in modern times, but our peoplehood is still essential, primitive. We never ceased to be a clan or tribe. This is expressed both sociologically and theologically. Sociologically, we behave like a family. Because we are close to each other, we have fights. But even when you say terrible things about your own people, you care deeply about their reaction. I can have, from time to time, a desire to kick my own brother. I may even do it. But I won’t allow any stranger to kick my brother. That’s the sociological side of the peoplehood, the tribalism, that Jews are blamed or praised for.

Is it genetic? No. In a theological sense, we as a people never bothered much about genetics. We always had a certain number, no one can say exactly how many, of other people blending in. There was a proselyte from Sicily, who had been a Norman knight. He wrote a letter to Maimonides asking him a halachic question: “When I pray, do I say, ‘God of my fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?’” And Maimonides wrote back, very warmly—not like most of his letters—saying, “Of course! Once you convert you are a child of Abraham, and you can say, ‘My father Abraham, my mother Sarah,’ and so forth.”

According to Jewish law, one cannot leave the Jewish people, exactly in the same way that one cannot leave one’s family. No Jewish court has ever had the right to un-Jew someone. At the same time, converts are treated like adopted children: Once they join, they are family. This is the theological expression of the same notion of peoplehood.

Almost every great religion has a missionary stripe in it. Except for Jews, and why? Because you don’t grab people on the street and tell them, “Join my family!” There are all kinds of things that began with us and spread all over the world—

Jehuda Reinharz, PhD
President and CEO
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation

Jehuda Reinharz, PhD was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1944. He received his high school education in Germany and immigrated to the United States as a teenager in 1961.

Dr. Reinharz earned concurrent bachelor’s degrees from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He earned his master’s degree in medieval Jewish history from Harvard University in 1968 and his doctorate in modern Jewish history from Brandeis University in 1972. From 1972 to 1982, he was professor of Jewish history at the University of Michigan.

In 1982, he became the Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. From 1994-2010, he served as the seventh president of Brandeis University. In January 2011, Dr. Reinharz assumed the presidency of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation.

With Jehuda’s leadership and vision, the Mandel Foundation awarded Hebrew College a challenge grant of $1 million early in our capital campaign. His early support helped galvanize our efforts, inspiring others to join, and we are thrilled to honor him as we celebrate the conclusion of the campaign and begin our next chapter.

Dr. Reinharz is the author or co-author of more than one hundred articles and thirty-four books in various languages. His Jew in the Modern World, (3rd edition 2011), co-edited with Paul Mendes-Flohr, is one of the most widely adopted college texts in modern Jewish history. His two-volume biography of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, has won many prizes in Israel and the United States. His current book deals with the history of the Jordan River.

Dr. Reinharz is the recipient of nine honorary doctorates. He served as chairman of the International Board of the Weizmann Institute of Science from 2018 to 2021 and serves on a number of other