A discussion among women engineers recently took place at the office of the Interim Dean at the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences/ University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Part 1 focused on career challenges; Part 2 of the dialogue highlights issues of STEM education. Convened by Lulu Copeland, the diverse discussion group included participants from the Chattanooga and North Georgia area.
Continue reading Women in Engineering Part 2: Education — by Deborah Levine
(The Bermuda Jews History Series was originally published in The Bermudian Magazine)
In the early 1900s, Jewish tailors among the Eastern Europeans who arrived in America in droves. Only one tailor, my great grandfather, ended up as one of few Bermuda Jews. Picking up an Americanized version of his Russian last name, he became Axel Malloy passing through Ellis Island in New York City. He was better known by the first name of David, a name change that happened when he seriously ill. The family kept to the Eastern European Jewish tradition changing one’s name to hide from the Angel of Death.
Continue reading Bermuda Jews Part 2: The Immigrants — by Deborah Levine
Stephen Zack is determined that the American Bar Association (ABA) does not give in to ‘diversity fatigue.’ Zack is the first Hispanic president of the American Bar Association in its 150 years. Not surprisingly, Zack has an ongoing passion for both the law and for the issue of diversity. Recent census numbers underscores Zack’s insistence that the U.S. legal profession to become more diverse. One in six Americans is now of Hispanic heritage; the Asian-American population has more than doubled in the last 10 years. But the increasingly multiracial American population is not yet accurately reflected in the U.S. legal system even though lawyers and judges should represent the community they serve. The ABA formed the first-ever Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities to address the disparity.
Continue reading ABA’s First Hispanic President on Changing Demographics – by Deborah Levine
Neil Young is now in his sixties, with many great achievements and awards, including MusiCares Person of the Year. When Young received the honor given his decades of work with Farm Aid and Bridge School Concerts, some of the most famous musicians in the business serenaded Young with his own songs: Elton John, James Taylor, Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow Leon Russel, and Keith Russell. Young was quoted as saying that he’d forgotten how many songs he’d written. When did cultural superstar Young hit retirement age? He’s at the point in his life when he either 1) created so many songs he lost count or 2) really can’t remember. Not to worry, Neil.
Continue reading Why Neil Young Has No Worries – by Deborah Levine
On a cold night in Sixties, my cousin Sam and I escaped our Harvard dorms and headed out for a small neighborhood theater in Boston. I had the homesick bug; Sam cheered me up with a concert by a relatively unknown Ravi Shankar. Shankar was a musician who would eventually attract the Beatles, and the West, to his music. He was more of a cult icon in those days. I was an early entry into the All-Things-Eastern craze, having squeezed myself into a course on Buddhism at Harvard Divinity School. Even so, I had never seen Shankar perform or heard his music.
Continue reading When Ravi Shankar met James Brown — by Deborah Levine
Maria Tallchief, international ballet superstar, inspired the ballerina in those of my generation caught up in the Dance Fantasy. Like gambling fever, the Dance can be all-consuming, easily contracted and a life-long passion. I caught dancing fever at first sight, growing up in Bermuda. I stared, open-mouthed when the square dance caller yelled ‘allemande right’ and my older brother Joe and his friends flew around the circle formation. “Me, too!” begged my five-year-old self. “Can I, huh, Can I?” The caller looked pained when Mom asked permission. “Yeah, OK. But only if she can find someone who’ll dance with a kid that young.” The deck was stacked against me, but Joe paid a friend sixpence to dance with me. My love affair with dance was off and running.
Continue reading Defying Gravity with Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief — by Deborah Levine
A friend on Facebook is the brand new father of a baby girl. Simon Cohen, in awe of childbirth and fatherhood invited his friends to give him ideas for an upcoming British radio show asking, “Why aren’t women given more respect? It’s the 21st Century!”
Continue reading Conversation with a New Dad about Women — by Deborah Levine
(The Bermuda Jews History Series was originally published in The Bermudian Magazine)
I sat in a restaurant overlooking Hamilton harbor pondering my morning researching Bermuda Jews in the island’s Archives. I’d spent many hours reviewing Bermuda’s Jewish tourism prior to World War II. Yes, my family had mentioned ‘restricted’ places where no Jews were allowed. But mostly I remembered their stories of Bermuda’s war-time kindness to Jews. Recently, Dr. Hollis Hallett, the Archives founder, directed me to documents from the 1930s showing the impact of an increasingly global anti-Semitism on Bermuda tourism. What should I write about this ugly period?
Continue reading Bermuda Jews Part 3: The Jewish Question — by Deborah Levine
When my family moved to America from British Bermuda, I was still in elementary school, having completed first form, the equivalent of first grade, at the Bermuda High School (BHS) for Girls. Uniform and uniformed, I marched in step with the other girls, just as my mother had done through her entire schooling at BHS. Yes, I did stand out as the only Jewish girl in the school, or anywhere on the island. But generations of my family were well known on the island, so the singularity was tolerable. Inserted into a New York City suburb, I was delighted to find that this particular oddity was completely irrelevant. Unfortunately, an ongoing confidence crisis took its place.
(The Bermuda Jews History Series was originally published in The Bermudian Magazine)
In May of 1941, my grandparents sent round-trip tickets to their eldest daughter, Estelle, to bring her young man, Aaron Levine, to visit them in Bermuda. Estelle, my mother, had met Aaron when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore at Harvard University. The trip was a chance for Myer and Ida to check out their prospective son-in-law. A photograph of Aaron and Estelle on a Bermuda beach shows two young college students, a sweet-faced girl and a skinny young man. She’s kneeling in the sand, smiling unguardedly into the camera. Aaron stands behind her looking proud, defiant and possessive: Bermuda Jews in the making.
Continue reading Bermuda Jews Part 4: Love, War and Beyond — by Deborah Levine