Brandeis Magazine
Summer 2024
On the Bookshelf
Faculty Books
When colleagues work not in cubicles next door but in countries across the world, developing professional relationships means adopting new mindsets and learning new interpersonal skills. Molinsky, professor of international management and organizational behavior at Brandeis International Business School, and his co-author show workers in today’s global economy how to bridge cultures and build teams.
Jewish brides across six continents share how they met, courted, and wedded their life partner, describing rituals, rites, and traditions that are both stunningly diverse and instantly familiar. Reinharz is the Jacob S. Potofsky Professor of Sociology, Emerita.
Hassenfeld delves into the questions religious studies and literature teachers must answer to be effective in their classrooms: How is a text’s meaning determined? When and how do you allow your students to follow their own lines of interpretation? The author is the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Assistant Professor in Jewish Education.
A compilation of short stories, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction that yields vivid insights into the future of the environment. Irr, the Kevy and Hortense Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities, keeps the focus on contemporary works that show how environmental challenges affect communities worldwide.
Two Heller faculty members (Carlson and Cutcher-Gershenfeld) and a Heller alum (Kriegsman) present case studies that help business leaders understand and meet their organization’s societal obligations. The wide range of business areas addressed include consumer goods, finance, health care, social services, and transportation.
Alumni Books
Albom’s latest novel follows the lives of four characters: three young Jews in Salonika, Greece, and the Nazi officer who tricks one of them into luring people onto trains headed for Auschwitz. For decades, their paths remain intertwined against a backdrop of lies and hope.
When crazy-in-love teen Ella Fitchburg is accused of trying to kill her boyfriend’s father, she agrees to give up the baby she’s carrying. Six years later, released from prison, she begins a search for her child and the truth, since neither she nor her former boyfriend can remember the events that led to the attempted murder. A gripping novel, Leavitt’s 13th.
With the introduction of smaller, lighter cameras in the mid-20th century, the images captured by street photographers could reflect a deeper intimacy. The shots showcased here, taken by working-class Jewish photographers, elevate everyday rhythms into art.
Novelist Gerber pens a lively assortment of essays about pivotal moments in her life. The title piece, a wry look at aging — sparked by visits to a food pantry during the pandemic — was chosen for inclusion in the “Best American Essays 2023” anthology.
The first English translation of a 1930 coming-of-age novel originally published in French, about a young Moroccan Jewish woman struggling to find her voice and true love at the turn of the 20th century. Malino is an emerita professor of Jewish studies and history at Wellesley College.
Beaudoin, an assistant professor of music at Dartmouth College, studies the non-notated sounds careful listeners hear in classical-music recordings — the audible traces of a performer’s breath, for instance, or surface noises left by recording equipment. Far from being extraneous, the author believes, these sounds evoke listeners’ empathy and add layers of complexity to performances.
During his 16 seasons in Major League Baseball, Roberto Alomar was a standout hitter and second baseman, becoming a 12-time All-Star and, eventually, a Hall of Fame inductee. But his troubling behavior on and off the field included an ugly altercation with an umpire and allegations of sexual misconduct. This biography takes the measure of the highs and lows of a storied career.
A University of Southern California associate professor of journalism, Winston looks back at President Ronald Reagan’s ability to shape the stories told by what was then a handful of mainstream-media outlets. His successes ensured the longevity of his worldview, especially his embrace of certain ideals, such as personal freedom and self-reliance.
The director of Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab offers plain-spoken advice on using artificial intelligence ethically and responsibly. The book promises to help a nontechnical audience, including business leaders and policymakers, avoid AI’s pitfalls and maximize its potential for making the world a better place.
Former broadcast journalist Waldman expected bumps in the road when he started a podcast (“Surviving the Survivor”) with his 80-something psychotherapist/Holocaust survivor mom. But he didn’t foresee the ways in which the venture would lead to frank, moving discussions about love, death, and living fully. An engrossing account of a mother-and-son relationship, past and present.
Franklin Roosevelt didn’t introduce Americans to big government. It existed, this book demonstrates, as early as the late 18th and 19th centuries, when the activism and robust state of the John Quincy Adams presidency grew even stronger during the Ulysses S. Grant and William Howard Taft years. Rockwell is a professor of political science at New York’s St. Joseph’s University.
If, after accepting a job offer or negotiating a severance package, you’ve had the sinking feeling you settled for too little, this book could be the road map to knowing your worth. Its goal, as employment attorney Howard Matalon explains, is “providing a deeper understanding of how employers think and giving professionals greater insight into their own value.”
Romero pulls from family letters and historical documents to chronicle her Jewish father’s desperate attempts to get out of Nazi Germany and reunite in America with the Lutheran woman he loved. A real-life thriller, in which devotion and perseverance overcome nearly insurmountable odds.
A collection of stories from participants in the One-by-One program, created to help people affected by the Holocaust process trauma, guilt, and shame. Side by side, the descendants of survivors, resistors, Nazi perpetrators, and bystanders experience the healing power of dialogue and the compassion born of hearing other families’ histories.
Shorr uses a comic-book format to tell the compelling true story of his grandfather’s experiences during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, including being wounded during the defense of Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.
Refuting the idea that Judaism is rigidly doctrinaire, this book taps into classical and contemporary Jewish texts to show the philosophical spirit with which they consider the meaning of life. Mittleman is professor emeritus of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
A step-by-step guide that helps data professionals and business executives integrate machine learning into their organization’s operations. The approach outlined can benefit a company’s practices in both the generative AI and predictive AI realms.
Originally published in 2007, “Coercive Control” studies how women can be subjected to abuse in a personal relationship through the use of violence, nonconsensual sex, intimidation, and isolation. This revision adds information about new coercive-control laws enacted around the world and court cases in which women charged with serious crimes have been acquitted because they were coercive-control victims.
A timeless story of learning to fly, this memoir covers five years of correspondence between Stevenson and her mother, beginning when the author leaves home for her first year at Brandeis. The move marked a big transition from the togetherness Stevenson had known: “We were never apart. Well, hardly ever.”
A drug dealer reports money was stolen from him during a police raid on his home. A cop is charged with the crime. But will hidden truths emerge? This crime novel is based on a true story the author covered in 1979 as a Boston reporter.
Every survivor’s story is a miracle. Frielich reflects on her father’s incredible escape from Nazi Germany by retracing his steps, reliving his emotions, and sensitively examining the impact his journey had on him and his family.
Around the globe, universities are helping their faculty grow by setting up professional development centers where they can explore new and better styles of teaching. This comprehensive overview shows how these development programs work and the range of discoveries they can inspire.
A humorous holiday fantasy that will delight readers of all ages, “Saving Santa” follows the efforts of an intrepid elf as she tries to keep Santa Claus, now the distracted CEO of North Pole Industries, from being replaced by robots and drones. Narayanan is a Hollywood screenwriter.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, Tan, an assistant professor of sociology at Vassar, looks at two social movements — the autistic rights movement and the alternative biomedical movement — that challenge preeminent autism experts by viewing autism as a difference to be accepted or a sickness to be treated.
How much of our life do we control, and how much happens at random? This novel, which follows years in the lives of two friends as they meet with success and adversity (the latter including prison time and a run-in with the Hell’s Angels), prompts existential questions about autonomy and serendipity.
A fantasy that imagines justice for the Jews expelled from Prague in 1744, “A Cat’s Garden of Secrets” follows a young woman with magical powers and a talking cat as they try to save a city from power-hungry overlords. (“Jacqueline Diamond” is the pen name used by Jackie Hyman ’71.)
Leveraging AI in the service of writing fiction, Cohen and his co-author fed plot ideas into ChatGPT, then edited the prose it produced to create this international-espionage thriller. The novel is the first volume in a planned series centered around a high-powered national-security official named Cole Adams.
A memoir that records the author’s lifelong spiritual quest, from her Catholic childhood in Maine, to her undergrad years at Brandeis and her exploration of Judaism, to her membership in the Unification movement. Eby is a retired educator.
Schlesinger — who’s been a substitute teacher at an all-girls New York City high school, an assistant principal at an alternative high school, and an adjunct professor at Pace and Fordham Universities — shares vignettes from across his career, along with his ideas for improving teaching and schools.
Brandeis University Press
Treasures in the Library of Congress Judaica collection get their dazzling close-up, many for the first time. The documents and books on beautiful display here include the Washington Haggadah, a 15th-century Hebrew-language manuscript illuminated in tempera and gold.