MERI-JANE ROCHELSON
Professor Emerita, English
Florida International University
rochelso@fiu.edu
​
Recent Online Events and Highlights:
​
The Parkes Institute: University of Southampton (UK)
Zangwill and his Legacies, September 14, 2022
Participant and Roundtable Presenter in this all-day Zoom conference
​
Miami Jewish Film Festival 2024 In Conversation: The Return from the Other Planet
A conversation with Assaf Gilad, writer/director/production of The Return from the Other Planet, January 2024
​
Miami Jewish Film Festival 2022 In Conversation: The Adventures of Saul Bellow
A conversation wtih Asaf Galay, writer/director/producer of The Adventures of Saul Bellow, January 2022
The link to this program is available HERE.
​
Miami Jewish Film Festival 2021 In Conversation: My Dearest Enemy
A conversation wtih Tzipi Trope, writer/director/producer of My Dearest Enemy, April 2021
The link to this program is available HERE.
​
Center for Jewish History Family Affairs: Ashkenazi & Sephardi Personal Histories
Meri-Jane Rochelson and Devin Naar in conversation with Natalia Aleksiun, November 11, 2020
The link to this program is available HERE.
​
New York Public Library Doc Chat Episode 7: Listening to and Reading Holocaust Testimony
October 22, 2020
​The link to this program is available HERE.
​
2018-2019 Jewish Book Council Network Author
​
President, Nineteenth Century Studies Association, 2006-2012
​
Organizer of Zangwill 150, a full-day seminar at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, in honor of the sesquicentennial of Israel Zangwill's birth. Attended by nearly 150 scholars and community members.
​
Interview subject and consultant for the radio documentary “The Jewish Dickens: Israel Zangwill.” Broadcast January 25, 2004, BBC Radio 3. Pennine Productions, Mark Whitaker, Producer.
​
Consultant to Ruth Fruchtman, a Berlin writer, on the radio documentary Israel Zangwill: Ein Ghettoträummer, 2002.
Consultant on the exhibit “‘The Jewish Dickens’: Israel Zangwill and the Wanderers of Kilburn.” November 1999-March 2000. Jewish Museum, London.
​
​
Education
1976-82: Ph.D. in English, University of Chicago, with Honors
Dissertation: "George Eliot and Metaphor: Creating a Narrator in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Novel"; Directors: Wayne C. Booth and Diana Postlethwaite
1975-76: M.A. in English, University of Chicago, with Honors
1971-73: M.A. in Teaching of English, Teachers College, Columbia University (Minor field: TESOL)
1969-71: B.A., Barnard College, with Honors in Political Science
1967-69: Attended Smith College, Northampton, MA
Recent Professional Honors and Grants
Research grant, Targum Shlishi: A Raquel and Aryeh Rubin Foundation, 2013
President’s Award, Nineteenth Century Studies Association, 2013
Grant, “Identity, Diaspora and Culture,” Transnational and Comparative Studies Center, FIU, 2004
Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Fellowship, 2003-04
Women’s Studies Faculty Service Award, 2004
Outstanding Honors Fellow Award ($1000), 2002; Senior Fellow in the Honors College, 2005
College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Awards, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Professional Experience
Professor Emerita, English, 2016-present
Professor of English, Tenured, Florida International University, 2007-2016
Associate Chair of English, 2008-2016
Member of the Graduate Faculty, 2003-2016; Dissertation Advisor Status, 2008-2016
Associate Professor of English, Tenured, Florida International University, 1992-2007
Acting Director, Women’s Studies Center and B.A. Program in Women’s Studies, Florida International University, 1999-2000
Assistant Professor of English, Florida International University, 1986-1992
Instructor in English, Florida International University, 1984-86
Adjunct Lecturer in Composition and Literature, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, 1982-84
Adjunct Lecturer in Composition (ESL), Queens College, City University of New York, 1981-82
Part-time Instructor in Humanities, Degree-Granting Continuing Education Program for Nurses, College of St. Francis, Joliet, IL, Summers 1978, 1979
Teaching Intern (unpaid) and Writing Tutor, University of Chicago Humanities Program, 1977, 1978-79
Teacher of English and ESL, Lower East Side Prep. School, New York City, 1973-75
Teacher of English, Midwood High School, Brooklyn, NY, Spring 1973
Publications
Books:
Eli’s Story: A Twentieth-Century Jewish Life. Interviews by Burton L. Rochelson. A biography of Eli G. Rochelson, MD (1907-1984). Wayne State University Press, 2018.
The Melting-Pot, by Israel Zangwill. A Broadview Edition with introduction, notes, and contextualizing documents. Broadview Press, 2018.
A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill. Wayne State University Press, 2008. Paperback edition, 2010.
Children of the Ghetto, by Israel Zangwill (1892). Edited (with introduction, bibliography, and notes) by Meri-Jane Rochelson. Wayne State University Press, 1998.
Transforming Genres: New Approaches to British Fiction of the 1890s. Anthology of critical essays, co-edited with Nikki Lee Manos. St. Martin's Press, 1994.
​
Critical Articles in Journals and Collections:
​
"The Melting-Pot and Its Legacies." European Judaism (forthcoming).
​
"Russian Nihilists in British Periodicals, 1880-1900." Victorians Institute Journal 50 (2023): 159-185.
​
"The King of Schnorrers: Israel Zangwill's Radical Romance." In The Sundry Faces of Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Jewish Literature. Ed. by Karen Weisman. Romantic Circles Praxis, 2020. https://romantic-circles.org/praxis/sundryfaces/praxis.2020.sundry.rochelson.html
​
“The Call in the Context of Edith Ayrton Zangwill’s Fiction.” In Edith Ayrton Zangwill’s The Call. Ed. by Stephanie Brown. Bloomsbury, 2020: 243-52.
“Israel Zangwill’s Italian Fantasies: Constructing a Self Beyond the Ghetto.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 13.1 (January 2015): 137-153.
"Masters and Messiahs: Religion, Sex, and Home in Two Works by Israel Zangwill.” Victorian Review 37.2 (Fall 2011): 121-35.
“Israel Zangwill: le féministe.” Ces hommes qui épousèrent la cause des femmes. Dix pionniers britanniques (These Men Who Espoused the Cause of Women: Ten British Pioneers). Edited by Martine Monacelli-Faraut and Michel Prum. Les editions de l’Atelier, 2010: 149-62.
“‘A Religion of Pots and Pans’: Jewish Materialism and Spiritual Materiality in Israel Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto.” Victorian Vulgarity. Edited by Susan David Bernstein and Elsie Michie. Surrey, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009: 119-35.
“Afterword.” Amy Levy: Critical Essays. Edited by Nadia Valman and Naomi Hetherington. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010: 221-26.
“Edith Ayrton Zangwill and the Anti-Domestic Novel.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 36.3 (2007): 161-183.
“The Friendship of Israel Zangwill and Mabel E. Wotton: ‘Faithfully Yours, Margaret.’” English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 48.3 (2005): 305-23.
"Zionism, Territorialism, Race, and Nation in the Thought and Politics of Israel Zangwill." In ‘The Jew’ in Edwardian Culture: Between the East End and East Africa. Edited by Eitan Bar-Yosef and Nadia Valman. London: Palgrave, 2009: 144-160.
"Israel Zangwill's Early Journalism and the Formation of an Anglo-Jewish Literary Identity." In Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities. Edited by Laurel Brake, Bill Bell, and David Finkelstein. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2000: 178-94.
“Israel Zangwill and Women’s Suffrage.” Jewish Culture and History 2.2 (Winter 1999): 1-17.
"'They That Walk in Darkness': Ghetto Tragedies: The Uses of Christianity in Israel Zangwill's Fiction." Victorian Literature and Culture 27 (1999): 219-33.
“Teaching Jewish Studies: Israel Zangwill and Children of the Ghetto.” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of
Jewish Life and Thought 48.1 (1999): 84-101. [Slightly condensed reprint of Introduction to Children of the Ghetto]
"Bending the Bow: The Verdict (1946) and the Hollywood Victorian Detective." In The Detective in American Fiction, Film, and Television. Edited by Jerome H. Delamater and Ruth Prigozy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998: 85-92.
"Jews, Gender, and Genre in Late-Victorian England: Amy Levy's Reuben Sachs." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 25 (1996): 311-28.
"The Big Bow Mystery: Jewish Identity and the English Detective Novel." Victorian Review 17.2 (1991): 11-20.
"Language, Gender, and Ethnic Anxiety in Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto." English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 31.4 (1988): 399-412.
"Style and Self-Censorship in George Eliot's First Fiction." FIU Women's Studies Center Occasional Papers Series, 1985.
"The Weaver of Raveloe: Metaphor as Narrative Persuasion in Silas Marner." Studies in the Novel 15 (1983): 35-43. Rpt. in The Critical Response to George Eliot. Ed. Karen L. Pangallo. Critical Responses in Arts and Letters. Westport: Greenwood, 1994. 99-107; as “The Narrator’s Use of Metaphor,” in Readings on Silas Marner. Ed. Barbara A. Goodman. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000: 164-171; in George Eliot’s Silas Marner. Ed. and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Modern Critical Interpretations Series. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003: 15-26; and, abridged, as “Meri-Jane Rochelson on Metaphor and Narrative” in George Eliot: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide. Ed. and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Bloom’s Major Novelists Series. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003: 59-63.
Critical Work in Progress:
“Religion or Nation? East or West?: Israel Zangwill on ‘The Jewish Race.’” Article for proposed anthology "The First Universal Races Congress of 1911: Empires, Civilizations, Encounters," ed. by Mansour Bonakdarian, Ian Christopher Fletcher, and Yaël Simpson Fletcher. Article manuscript accepted by editors.
Articles on Pedagogy:
​
“Team-Teaching Jewish and Caribbean Immigrant Literature to Diverse Students in a State University.” With Donna Aza Weir-Soley. Teaching Jewish American Literature. Edited by Roberta Rosenberg and Rachel Rubinstein. Modern Language Association of America, 2020: 82-89.
“Revisiting the ‘Visitable Past’: Reflections on Wayne Booth’s Teaching after 29 Years.” Pedagogy 7.1 (2007): 37-48.
Short Piece on the Use of Technology in Honors [untitled contribution to a collection]. Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council 3.2 (Fall/Winter 2002): 48.
"'This is My Testimony': Rigoberta Menchú in a Class on Oral History." In Teaching and Testimony: Rigoberta Menchú and the North American Classroom. Edited by Stephen Benz and Allen Carey-Webb. Albany: SUNY Press, 1996: 247-57.
Reference and Other Similar Invited Articles:
“Israel Zangwill” (300 words) and “Children of the Ghetto” (350 words). Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction. McFarland. Forthcoming.
“Israel Zangwill.” Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature. (1000 words; peer reviewed) August 2015.
“The Melting Pot.” Enzyklopädie jüdisher Geschichte und Kultur (Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture). Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture. Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler. (2013): 130-34. (Article written in English, translated into German for publication.)
“Israel Zangwill and Oscar Wilde.” Revised and reprinted from A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill (2008): 79-81. The Oscholars, online journal. Special issue on Oscar Wilde and the Jews. September 2010.
“Reaching the Reader in Scholarly Nonfiction.” “From the Masters,” September 2010. Online essay published simultaneously on the websites of Screw Iowa and Bridle Path Press.
“Israel Zangwill, the First Great Chronicler of the East End.” The Cable: The Magazine of the Jewish East End Celebration Society. Issue 10, 2009: 16-20.
“Israel Zangwill.” 300-word article. The Cambridge Dictionary of Jewish History, Religion, and Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
“Israel Zangwill.” 200-word article. Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism. Academia Press, Ghent; British Library; ProQuest, 2008.
“Israel Zangwill.” 1500-word article. Encyclopedia of British Literature. Oxford University Press, 2006.
“Israel Zangwill.” Short reference article in Jewish Virtual Library (2006).
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/zangwill.html
"Israel Zangwill." Long biographical and critical article. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography; Late Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists, Second Series. Gale, 1999: 302-15.
"Israel Zangwill." Long biographical and critical article. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography; British Short Fiction Writers, 1880-1914/The Realist Tradition. Gale, 1994: 362-78.
"Zangwill, Israel (1864-1926)"; "Children of the Ghetto." The Eighteen_Nineties: An Encyclopedia. Garland, 1993: 112-13, 695-96.
Many book reviews as well as papers at national and international scholarly conferences, not listed here.
Invited Lectures and Programs
​
"Eli's Story and the Catholic Reaction to the Holocaust." Co-presenter with Dr. Burton Rochelson. Saint Leo University Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies and the Florida Holocaust Museum, Saint Petersburg, Florida, April 27, 2023.
​
"Eli's Story: Narrative and Memory Across Two Generations." University of Connecticut-Stamford, April 18, 2023.
​
"Listening to and Reading Holocaust Testimony." New York Public Library Doc Chat, Episode 7 (webinar), Oct. 22, 2020.
Invited Public Lecture, “Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot (1908): The Play that Tried to Change History.” College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Louisiana State University, March 2019.
“Meet the Author.” A talk on Eli’s Story A Twentieth-Century Jewish Life, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council and the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center for the Northeast Miami-Dade Jewish Community, March 2019.
Invited Public Lecture, “Israel Zangwill: The First Anglo-Jewish Celebrity.” The Chaim Yakov Shlomo College of Jewish Studies at The Shul, Surfside, FL, February 2019; followed by a seminar discussion with CYS students on Zangwill’s story “The Jewish Trinity.”
Book Talk on Eli’s Story: A Twentieth-Century Jewish Life, Temple Sinai, North Miami Beach, FL, January 2019.
“The Jewish Trinity.” Seminar discussion of a short story by Israel Zangwill. Part of the series Mondays at the Museum, FIU Jewish Studies Initiatives, Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, October 20, 2014.
“Israel Zangwill: An Illustrated Overview.” Presented at Zangwill 150: A Day of Celebration, Scholarship, and Theater.” Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, February 9, 2014.
Invited talk in “The Poetics of Realism: A Session in Honor of Harriet Turner.” Presented at the MLA annual convention, Chicago, IL, January 2014.
“Israel Zangwill and The Melting Pot.” Invited salon presentation at the Betsy-South Beach, in conjunction with the JAHLIT conference, November 2013.
Presentation and interview about A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill. Posen Foundation Education Project: Professional Development Seminar for Teachers (“Not Quite Kosher:
Secular Jewish Writers from Kafka to Chabon”). Sponsored by the Posen Foundation and the Center for Studies in Jewish Education and Culture, University of Cincinnati. Florida International University. February 26, 2012.
Public Lecture, “Zangwill and the Jewish East End.” Presented at Toynbee Hall, London, for the Jewish East End Celebration Society. May 30, 2010.
Public Lecture, “Israel Zangwill: A Jew in the Public Arena.” Presented at the Jewish Museum London, co-sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of England. May 27, 2010.
Reading, A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill . Miami Book Fair International. November 15, 2009.
Book talk on A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill. Co-sponsored by the Wolfsonian-FIU, the FIU Women’s Studies Center (Women of Distinction Series), and the FIU Program in Judaic Studies. The Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach, January 2009.
“The Melting Pot: A Centennial Look Back at Israel Zangwill’s Play.” The Harry and Marjorie Tobias Lecture, Fall 2008 Jewish Heritage Lecture Series. The George L. Mosse/Laurence A. Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. November 2008.
“Musing on the Margin: How The Industrial Muse Opened the Way for Anglo-Jewish Studies.” Presented at “The Future of Victorian Studies: A Conference in Honor of Martha Vicinus,” University of Michigan. April 2008.
"'Perhaps IZ Stands for Both': The Complicated Zionism of Israel Zangwill." Presented at “Between the East End and East Africa: ‘The Jew’ in Edwardian Culture,” a colloquium organized by the AHRB Parkes Centre for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton, UK, July 2003.
“New Women, Jewish Men: Jewish Writers Confront Gender at the Turn of the Century.” Presented at the UCLA/Clark Library conference New Women, Old Men? Debating Sexual Difference in the 1890s. University of California, Los Angeles Center for Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Studies and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. May 2000.
“Israel Zangwill and Women’s Suffrage.” Paper presented in a seminar at the University of Southampton, England, in connection with the dedication of the Harry S. Ward Collection at the University library. December 1999.
“Israel Zangwill and his World.” Public lecture presented at the Jewish Museum, London, in connection with the exhibit “‘The Jewish Dickens’: Israel Zangwill and the Wanderers of Kilburn.” December 1999.
​
Selected Professional Service
President, Nineteenth Century Studies Association, 2006-2012
Member, NCSA Senior Advisory Council, 2013-present
Manuscript reviewer for journals and presses; external reviewer for tenure and promotion files and fellowships; thesis advisor and reader for MA and MFA students in English, and dissertation external reader for students in History.
​
Community Adult Education Classes Taught
“Jewish Immigration to the United States, in History and Literature.” Three-class module, Beth Torah Adult Education Program, October 2017
.
“The Melting-Pot: The Play That Established the Metaphor.” One-class course, Lifelong Learning Institute, Nova Southeastern University, October 20, 2016.
Community Lectures and Other Community Service
​
"The Play that Tried to Change History: Israel Zangwill's The Melting-Pot." Limmud Miami 2020. February 23, 2020.
​
Introduction to the 1939 Yiddish film Tevya, Miami Jewish Film Festival, January 19, 2020.
​
Introduction to the film Tevye's Daughters, Miami Jewish Film Festival, January 14, 2018.
​
Book review discussion facilitator: Forest Dark, by Nicole Krauss. Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL, Jan. 11, 2018.
“What is Myasthenia Gravis? And Why Should You Care?” Talk presented at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center, North Miami Beach, FL, June 5, 2017.
Communications committee member, Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America. 2013-present.
Programming committee member, Limmud Miami. 2015, 2016.
“Writing Family History: Lessons from Experience.” Limmud Miami 2016. February 21, 2016.
Introduction to the film Song of Songs, based on a Sholem Aleichem novel and directed by Eva Neymann, Miami Jewish Film Festival, January 27. 2016.
Book review discussion facilitator: Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL, June 19, 2014.
Chair, Jewish Living Committee, Temple Sinai of North Dade, 2013-15.
Teaching Participant, Global Day of Jewish Learning, Temple Sinai, November 2013.
Committee member, “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” award selection and planning, Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, 2012-present.
“Lithuania: the Florida Connection.” Loaned family photographs to tell my father’s story in an exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Florida, Miami Beach, April 3-September 30, 2012.
Book review discussion facilitator: The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson. Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL, January 19, 2012.
Book talk on A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill. Beth Torah Sisterhood, Beth Torah Benny Rok Campus, North Miami Beach, FL. January 23, 2010.
Book review discussion facilitator: The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer. Sisterhood of Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL, January 21, 2010.
Panel participant, “Feminism: Then and Now.” Event organized by the FIU Women’s Studies Center in conjunction with the Jewish Museum of Florida, Miami Beach, to complement the exhibit “Judy Chicago: Jewish Identity.” November 5, 2009.
Book talk on A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill. Temple Sinai, North Miami Beach, FL. February 13, 2009.
“Israel Zangwill: The First Transatlantic Jewish Celebrity.” Talk presented at a combined program of the Renaissance Group, Temple Sinai of Toronto, and the Sisterhood, Beth Tikvah Congregation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 21, 2008.
Book review discussion facilitator: Days of Awe, by Achy Obejas. Sisterhood of Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL, April 16, 2007.
“Women’s Literary Responses to Parshat Chayei Sarah.” Session leader for Women of Reform Judaism Study Day, Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL. November 18, 2006.
“Israel Zangwill, the First Transatlantic Jewish Celebrity.” Talk presented at the monthly meeting of the Sisterhood of Temple Sinai of North Dade, North Miami Beach, FL. November 7, 2005.
“I, Zangwill: The Making of a Transatlantic Jewish Celebrity.” Harry S. Ward Memorial Lecture, Golders Green Synagogue, London, UK, June 26, 2005.
“Fiction of the American Jewish Immigrant Experience.” Lecture presented to the Interamerican Chapter of Hadassah, Miami Beach, December 16, 2004.
“The First Jewish Celebrity of the 20th Century: A Lecture on Author Israel Zangwill.” Jewish Book Month event, Miami-Dade Public Library System, Miami Beach branch, November 16, 2004.
“Seeking My Father’s Past: A Journey Through Lithuania.” Talk presented at Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, Miami, FL, October 2003.
“Literature of the Great Wave of Jewish Immigration.” Talk presented at the monthly meeting of Na’amat-Or group, April 2003.
“Israel Zangwill.” Talk presented at a meeting of the Golda Meir Chapter of Hadassah, Pompano Beach, FL, April 2002.
“Israel Zangwill and Children of the Ghetto.” Talk presented at a meeting of the regional chapter presidents of Women’s League for Israel, Februrary 2002.
“Searching for Israel Zangwill: A Scholar’s Journey.” Talk presented at the April 2001 meeting of the Hazak organization, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation.
“Israel Zangwill’s ‘Watchman, What of the Night?’” Talk presented at the October 2000 meeting of the South Florida Association for Jewish Studies, Greater Miami Jewish Federation.
“Jews in England.” Talk at the year’s inaugural program of Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Sisterhood, September 2000.
Introduction of Susan Faludi, speaker at the Miami Book Fair International, November 1999.
"Rahel Levin Varnhagen: The Life and Work of a German Jewish Intellectual,” by Heidi Thomann Tewarson." First Wednesdays Book Review, Adult Education Program, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, North Miami Beach, FL, January 2000.
“New Directions in Women’s Studies at the University.” Lecture at monthly meeting of the American Association of University Women-Florida, November 1999.
“Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto: A Jewish Literary Response to the Representation of the Jew in English Literature.” Lecture at Young Israel of Kendall, October 1999.
“Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto.” Lecture at North Miami Beach Havurah, October 1998.
“The Chosen People–-For What?” Tikkun Leyl Shavuot study session, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, Miami, FL, May 1998.
"Children of the Ghetto: Assimilation and Tradition 100 Years Ago." First Wednesdays Book Review, Adult Education Program, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, North Miami Beach, FL, April 1998.
"The Jewish Woman in the 21st Century: Inclusive Language in Prayer." Participant in lunch-and-learn program at Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, North Miami Beach, FL, February 1997.
"Shakespeare and the Jews, by James Shapiro." First Wednesdays Book Review, Adult Education Program, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, North Miami Beach, FL, November 1996.
"Israel Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto." Talk at Havurah of Boca Raton, FL, October 1996.
Guest Speaker on David Lean's film Great Expectations, Classic and Foreign Film Discussion Group, Fort Lauderdale, FL, February 1996.
"Children of the Ghetto, by Israel Zangwill." First Wednesdays Book Review, Adult Education Program, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, North Miami Beach, FL, November 1995.
"Amy Levy, a Late-Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Jewish Woman Writer." Talk presented as guest speaker at monthly meeting of Na'amat-Mazal group, Miami, Florida, January 1995.
"The Happy Prince," by Oscar Wilde, Lecture/discussion presented in the 5th and 6th grade Humanities core, regional gifted program, Highland Oaks Elementary School, March 1994.
"Issues in Reading and Teaching Holocaust Literature." Presented at the Teachers' Institute on Holocaust Studies for the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center in cooperation with Broward County, Dade County, and Palm Beach County Public Schools. June 1993.
"Israel Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto after One Hundred Years." Talk presented as guest speaker at monthly meeting of Na'amat-Or group, Miami, Florida, October 1992.
Participating Reader, Dade County Read-Aloud Day, Madie Ives Elementary School, April 1992, 1993.
Member, Sisterhood Board, 1998-2004; Executive Board, 1995-99; Board of Directors, 1994-99, Beth Torah Adath Yeshurun Congregation, Miami, FL.
Media Appearances:
Letter to the Editor: “Crown of Thorns.” The Forward, May 22, 2015: 19. A discussion of Israel Zangwill’s response to the Armenian genocide of 1915.
Interviewed for and quoted in article, “The Jewish Sylvia Plath? Neglected 19th-Century Author [Amy Levy] Gets a New Lease on Life.” By Jessica George Firger. The Forward, November 3, 2006: B3; also published as “Books: Interest grows in neglected 19th-Century female author Amy Levy,” Jewish Journal, Nov. 16, 2006.
Interviewed for and quoted in article, “Return of the Wanderer [An Exhibition of the Life and Times of Israel Zangwill],” By Lawrence Joffe. Jerusalem Report, January 17, 2000: 44-45.
Media appearance representing the Honors College, on FIU in View, program on high-achieving students and the 2002 National Collegiate Honors Council conference, taped and broadcast by WLRN public television, Cable-TAP, December 2002.
Media appearances as Acting Director of Women’s Studies: Brief news event responses on local news shows (WFOR and WSVN Miami); one of two participants in a half-hour interview show, FIU in View: Women’s History Month, taped and broadcast by WLRN public television Cable-TAP, March 2000.