Miriyam Glazer

Residence : Santa Monica, CA

Biographical information

Miriyam Glazer is a professor of Literature at the University of Judaism, where she is also studying for the rabbinate in the Ziegler School in Los Angeles. She was previously head of the Foreign Literatures department at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, where she lived for 11 years.

Dr. Glazer's newest books reflect her love of and expertise in many aspects Jewish life: Dancing on the Edge of the World: Jewish Stories of Faith, Inspiration, and Love; Dreaming the Actual: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry by Israeli Women Writers; The Bedside Torah: Wisdom, Visions, Dreams, which she edited, and The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking, on which she collaborated with her sister, Israeli food writer Phyllis Glazer. Her Study Guide to the Book of Ruth was translated into Hebrew, Spanish, and Russian and distributed world-wide by the Masorti movement of Israel.

Dr. Glazer has lectured on Spirituality, Torah, Jewish women and Jewish literature in Israel, the States, and Europe, at universities, synagogues, and community centers. She has published many essays in books and journals on those issues, including the upcoming How Do You Dance Before the Bride?, a memoir of 50 years of Jewish life in the States and Israel and her own journey to the rabbinate.

She has been a Visiting Professor at USC, at UCLA, and at Hebrew University and was a resident Writer at Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem.

Glazer is on the Education Committee of the International Council of Jewish Women, the editorial board of Shofar, and has been Literary Adviser to the Jewish Women's Theatre Project and a consultant for Public Radio KCRW, University of California Press, SUNY Press, and academic journals. She was a commentator for the "Navigating Real Life" ethical series of the Los Angeles Times and wrote on the weekly Torah portion for the Jewish Journal.

Prof. Glazer holds a B.A.in Literature from Antioch College, an M.A. in Rabbinic Studies from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where she was a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow and a Hirschfield Fellow in the Humanities.

Discussion topics

• The Spirituality of the Unexpected--Drawing on Torah, Jewish tradition, and moving true-to-life stories, this lecture inspires audiences to cope with, affirm, and spiritually grow as the result of encountering the "unexpected" in their lives.
• Torah as Spiritual Journey: How the Bible Speaks to Us Today--How the powerful characters and narratives of the Bible speak to the desires, dilemmas, and aspirations of our own moral and spiritual lives today.
• From Nature to Spirit: The Vitality of the Jewish Sacred Year--Particularly suitable before any of the Jewish holidays, this lecture awakens audiences to the intimate and fascinating relationships among the cycles of nature, Jewish spiritual life, and our festival foods and gives rich new meanings to our celebrations.
• What Jewish Literature Reveals About Our Culture Today--This lecture, which may focus on American Jewish or Israeli literature - and can also focus on the rich and provocative body of the new Israeli Women's Literature alone - shows audiences how the literature reflects back on the pressing moral, religious, and cultural conflicts in Jewish life today.
• Our Bodies, Our Souls: the Spirituality of Food--At a time when eating disorders are rampant and an epidemic of obesity is rampant in the States, this lecture, at once affirming and challenging, lecture restores a joyous and healthy relationship to food - particularly for Jews - by awakening a deeper connection between our bodies and our souls.

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