details
- Date
- time Eastern Time
- location Hebrew College
1860 Washington Street
Newton, MA 02466 - cost Free; registration required
- organizer Hebrew College & Yetzirah (Boston Chapter)
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description
Join us for our fourth poetry night of the academic year featuring Hebrew College President Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld and poet Ben Berman. View the flyer
Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Time: 7-8:30 PM
Location: Hebrew College Beit Midrash
Cost: Free, registration required
Co-sponsor: Boston Chapter of Yetzirah, Temple Reyim
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Poets
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld has been president of Hebrew College since 2018. She previously served as Dean of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College for 11 years. Rabbi Anisfeld graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1990 and subsequently spent 15 years working in pluralistic settings as a Hillel rabbi at Tufts University, Yale University, and Harvard University.
She was a regular summer faculty member for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel from 1993-2016 and is co-editor of two volumes of women’s writings on Passover, The Women’s Seder Sourcebook: Rituals and Readings for Use at the Passover Seder and The Women’s Passover Companion: Women’s Reflections on the Festival of Freedom.
She has been recognized on multiple occasions as one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek, the Daily Beast, and the Jerusalem Post. Rabbi Anisfeld writes and teaches widely, weaving together Torah, rabbinic commentary, and contemporary literature in her wise and compassionate approach to the complexities of the human experience and the search for healing and hope in a beautiful but fractured world.
Ben Berman is the author of three books of poems and the collection of essays, Writing While Parenting, a 2023 Times Literary Supplement Best Book of the Year. He has won the Peace Corps Award for the Best Book of Poetry, has been shortlisted twice for the Massachusetts Book Awards and has received awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, New England Poetry Club and Somerville Arts Council.
He’s been teaching for over 25 years and currently teaches creative writing classes at Brookline High School. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and two daughters.
Yetzirah
Yetzirah is the only national nonprofit literary organization dedicated to supporting Jewish poets, nourishing writers and readers of Jewish poetry now and for generations to come.