My teenage years included extensive experience both within the Jewish community and also in interracial settings. Those experiences have greatly influenced my professional practice, teaching, and scholarly life, balancing and integrating my intellectual interests and commitment to my Jewish life and community with my interracial and interfaith interests and communities.

My association with Judaic Studies at Michigan began in 1969 during my undergraduate years as a student here when, after passing out of the Hebrew language requirement, I took independent study courses (because there were so few faculty and course offerings) on Hebrew Literature and on Jewish Philosophy. I spent a year abroad in Israel working on independent study projects on the Kibbutzim, and on Arab-Israeli and Jewish Sephardi-Ashkenazi intergroup relations. I also was active at Hillel and in University of Michigan’s youth movement and Black student protests on campus.

I subsequently attended Harvard University for a master’s degree where I participated with the Jewish Education faculty-student study collective and co-led a faculty effort to help start a peace studies program there. At UC Berkeley, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on how Jews attempt to maintain their identity in a pluralistic society. That study and my subsequent book, Ethnic Survival in America: An Ethnography of a Jewish Afternoon School, was honored at the Hebrew University as the Best Dissertation on Jewish Education for 1970-1980 decade.

I returned to Michigan in 1979 and have had a wonderful career teaching, writing, and leading innovative undergraduate educational programs. I started by teaching courses using dialogic pedagogy that focused on “Jewish Identity,” “Blacks and Jews,” “Blacks, Jews, and Latinos,” and “Interracial and Interfaith Identities.” I helped found U-M’s Program on Intergroup Relations and organized conferences and published widely on dialogue efforts on campus and throughout the country, including efforts by Jewish and other racial and religious organizations. Some of my books include, Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Blacks, Jews, and Latinos; Intergroup Dialogue: Deliberative Democracy in School, College, Community, and Workplace; College Knowledge; and College Knowledge for the Jewish Student; and Teaching the Whole Student: Engaged Learning with Heart, Mind, and Spirit.

In addition to teaching, I took on administrative roles, including serving as director of the Michigan Community Scholars Program the past 20 years. I also served as LSA Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education, and Assistant Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs. Going forward, I’ll continue teaching part-time and will be working on a new book about the importance of intergroup dialogue and working to improve intergroup relations.

I have always tried to advocate for all students on campus, including underrepresented students of color, students from other social identity groups, and Jewish students and faculty. I have attempted to bring the Jewish faculty and student community on campus into the conversations and initiatives on race, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and have tried to create a presence and awareness among administrative staff leading those efforts that the Jewish community needs to have an active voice and seat at that table, too.

Throughout this time, I continued my association with Judaic Studies as an affiliate faculty member, offering courses on the “Sociology of the Jewish Community” and “Jewish Americans: Identity and Community in a Pluralistic Society.” I love the students in these classes and appreciate how interested they are in exploring the social scientific literature and academic research about the Jewish community, Jewish identity, intergroup relations, and renewed antisemitism. For so many Jewish students on campus, they are thrilled to expand their conceptual understanding of the Jewish community beyond their pre-Bar/Bat Mitzvah or day school studies and to take time to explore their Jewish identity as young adults. My association with so many wonderful faculty and staff in the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies has been enriching and memorable. It has been very rewarding to see the growth and vibrancy of Judaic Studies at Michigan, and how it has increasingly welcomed a more diverse group of scholars.