Poetry as Midrash in Motion

Featuring
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld & Ben Berman

Wednesday, April 29, 2026
7-8:30 PM | Hebrew College | Free

Join us for the fourth evening of our "Poetry as Midrash in Motion" series with featured readers Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, President of Hebrew College, and award-winning poet Ben Berman. The program is sponsored by Hebrew College and the Boston Chapter of Yetzirah, the only national nonprofit literary organization dedicated to supporting Jewish poets, nourishing writers and readers of Jewish poetry now and for generations to come.

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.

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.