Ruth Zerner
| School: | Lehman College |
| Department: | History |
| Location: | Bronx, NY |
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I have been retired for a year, after a 30 years dedication to the Civil service from where I tokk breaks during the weekend to take classes at Leahman in the Adult continuing ed program. Tonight, almost thirty years after, as I entered my library room at home, in NJ,,my eye fell randomly on a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer " The cost of discipleship" one of the required readings in the class I took with Dr Ruth Zerner, 1996-97 (around there)That is when I realized that I had all of the books she had required for her class, she always said, " It is not just for this class, but a list of readings for the rest of your life. Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Bonhoeffer, Albert Schweitzer, Howard Thurman,Elie Wiesel were authors introduced to our life by Dr Zerner in her class Personalities of Power and Faith, every Saturday morning. Dr Zerner encouraged us to go see Elie Wiesel live if we could and lo and behold I had that opportunity months later at the French Alliance in Manhattan. It was an experience that left an imprint in my life forever, after that experience I became a fan of Dr Zerner, I began to understand the gift of heaven that she was to us, her students. the book a Luminous Darkness by Howard thurman ,an american philosophe of genuine humanity and depth, left me feeling like belonging to an underground, since I have never heard his name mentioned in any US forum or quoted by anyone except Dr Zerner, and that added a punch to her mystique and uniquely intellectual, scholarly influence upon any student with the heart opened to receive what she had to give us. The most memorable event in my life happened at the end of that semester; she invited PRofessor Livia Bitton-Jackson, a legendary personality who also taught at Lehman college, Prof Livia Bitton, a child survivor of a concentration camp, to join us for a visit at a synagogue somewhere in the Bronx. It was my first time inside a synagogue. Livia Bitton followed us to a beautiful park where we shared words and asked questions. I recommend her book "I have lived a THousand Years", which sold at the Lehman' s book store. It is an amazing story of miracles, begining with how she found the photo she used for the cover of her book, a picture of her when she was ten, which she found decades later while visiting a holocaust museum in Poland where they displayed photos of victims of that horrible period in history She visited the place decades later and randomly found the picture, in the same way that I randomly saw the cover of the book by Dietrich Bohnhoffer , inspiring me to search for Dr Ruth Zerner tonight.. |
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