Temple B’nai Abraham’s Varied Voices Dedicated to the Memory of Rabbi Barry Friedman

Temple B’nai Abraham’s Varied Voices Dedicated to the Memory of Rabbi Barry Friedman, z”l,  presents Professor Wendy Zierler, Professor of Feminist studies and Modern Jewish Literature at HUC-JIR. 

Throughout his decades at Temple B’nai Abraham, the late Rabbi Barry Friedman, z”l, the synagogue’s spiritual leader from 1968-1999,was a strong supporter of Israel, an outspoken advocate for civil rights and a champion of the victims of all kinds of oppression. Rabbi Friedman also believed deeply in the synagogue pulpit as the ultimate open microphone, from which absolute freedom of speech should be practiced, with all points of view welcome. This year, Temple B’nai Abraham will present Varied Voices with speakers offering diverse opinions on a variety of important topics, each seeking in her or his own voice to offer a path toward the betterment of the Jewish world and the world at large. Rabbi Friedman taught that the first step in progress was to listen, and then to engage. Varied Voices, we hope, will honor his memory by doing just what he prescribed. On Tuesday, March 11, at 7:30 PM, at the temple, the guest speaker will be Wendy Zierler, Professor of Feminist Studies and Modern Jewish Literature at HUC-JIR, with a particular interest in early expressions of Jewish feminism. Her topic will be A Feminist Before Her Time: Hava Shapiro Confronts the Twentieth Century in Hebrew. 

A member of the HUC-JIR faculty since 2001, Dr. Zierler previously was a Research Fellow in the English Department of the University of Hong Kong. At HUC-JIR she is Head of the Hebrew Department, and teaches courses on Modern Hebrew and American Jewish Literature, Holocaust Literature, Literature of the Holidays, Reel Theology (with Dr. Eugene Borowitz), in addition to courses dealing with Gender and Judaism.

She received her Ph.D. and her M.A. from Princeton University, where she received Fulbright and Whiting Grants, and her B.A. from Yeshiva University, Stern College, where she was a Max Stern Scholar.  She also studied at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Michelelet Bruria in Jerusalem. Dr. Zierler is currently working towards an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. 

Her book, And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Hebrew Women’s Writing was published in 2004 from Wayne State University Press. Together with Carole Balin, she is editor of Behikansi atah, a collection of the Hebrew writings of Hava Shapiro (Resling Press, 2008), for which they received grants from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute. The English volume of Shapiro’s writings, co-edited with Carole Balin, will be published by Wayne State University Press. Drs. Balin and Zierler received the Cashmere grant from the AJS Women’s Caucus for their work on this book. This forthcoming volume will include Dr. Zierler’s translations of Shapiro’s stories, memoirs, diary, and letters, in addition to extensive notes and commentary. Other publications include a Feminist Haggadah commentary in My People’s Haggadah (Jewish Lights, 2008), and To Speak her Heart, an illustrated anthology of Jewish women’s prayers and poems, edited by Leslie Golomb and Barbara Broff Goldman, to which she contributed the introduction, several translations, and an original poem.

All the Varied Voices programs are free and open to the community, and are held at Temple B’nai Abraham located at 300 E Northfield Road, Livingston, New Jersey. Register online at www.tbanj.org or contact the Temple office, 
973.994.2290. For upcoming Varied Voices lectures please go to http://www.tbanj.org/congregational-learning/varied-voices.