Member Profiles

I first got involved in AARC back when it was the Havurah. While an undergraduate at Michigan, I taught kindergarten to a class full of Elis (who are all now heading to college themselves!). Originally from East Lansing, and having grown up in Kehillat Israel, I found a lot of comfort in the DIY nature of the Havurah.

After graduating from U-M, I spent time in DC, New York, Tel Aviv and the West Bank working with Jewish nonprofits doing human rights and social justice work. I returned to Ann Arbor to complete my Masters in Social Work and Jewish Communal Leadership, and found myself drawn back to the comfort of the AARC community.

I now teach courses in social justice and social identity at U-M and work as a lead organizer with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, an international nonprofit committed to nonviolent resistance to the Occupation.

I live on the West Side with my partner and when these cold, dreary winter months are over you’ll find us taking walks around the West Side, restocking our coffee supply at Argus, and attempting to grow our garden.

After attending a yoga/meditation shabbat last month, I was delighted when Debbie reeled me into joining the AARC and I’m looking forward to being a full member of the community (most importantly getting a permanent name tag)!

New members Carol Ullmann and Matt McLane both grew up in Michigan, Carol in Rochester Hills and Matt in Portland, not far from Lansing. They met through mutual friends in Ann Arbor while in college. Except for a 2 year “exile” in Northville, they have lived in east A2/west Ypsi/Pittsfield Township since 1999.

Carol and Matt have two delightful children. Zander is a 6th grader at Scarlett and a Boy Scout in Troop 7. He wants to be a programmer. He loves to read, especially books by Rick Riordan. He also loves to cook, play trumpet, draw, and design video games.

Elinor is a 2nd grader at Carpenter Elementary and a Brownie Girl Scout (currently selling cookies!). She loves to go camping and fishing, play board games, and do anything that involves hanging out with other people.

Carol works with AARC member Dave Nelson as a freelance writer, and it was Dave who invited Carol and Matt to check out AARC. After Carol and Ellie attended a Fourth Friday Shabbat service and potluck last May, the family decided the congregation was a good fit for their family. They signed the kids up for Beit Sefer and have been active since.

In describing themselves, Carol says, “Matt is a very capable outdoorsman, a kid at heart, and is assistant scoutmaster for Troop 7. He likes to fearlessly make stuff and is currently building a teardrop camper. I am deeply involved in fiber arts. I write, grow food, teach knitting, and am co-owner of Washtenaw Wool Company, which sells hand-dyed yarn and spinning fiber on Etsy and to local retailers.

Mark and Erica Ackerman have lived in the Burns Park area of Ann Arbor since 2001. Mark is a professor at UM in the School of Information and in the Division of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering where he does research in human-computer interaction (social computing). Erica is a web developer at the University, as well. They have two grown children, Rebecca and Zachary. Rebecca is a data analyst for a non-profit in New York City, and Zach was recently elected to the Ann Arbor City Council. You can read an interview with Zach about his election here.

Among other things, Mark is a news junkie, and Erica is active in the Democratic Party and has a passion for fighting global warming. An example of Erica’s blogging on the subject can be seen here. Mark and Erica began coming to AARC High Holiday services several years ago, and have gradually gotten more involved in the congregation.

Every year our AARC community kvells with graduates and their families as they move from one stage of their lives and educations to the next.  This year we say mazel tov to quite a few: Isaac Shore, son of Rena Seltzer and Pam Shore, graduated from Ann Arbor Community High School; Gil Eisbruch, son of Emily and Avi Eisbruch, graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota; Samuel Lichtman-Mikol, son of Lori Lichtman, graduated from Kalamazoo College; and Julie and Kevin Norris’ son Russell Norris graduated from Muhlenberg College and their daughter, Leah Norris, graduated from a master’s program at University of Colorado. (And my apologies if I’ve missed any — mazel tov to them, too!)

As a parent of a rising high school senior embarking on the college quest, I am always curious what our community’s high school and college graduates think of the schools they’ve attended. With this in mind, I sought out recent graduates Gil Eisbruch and Isaac Shore with a bevy of questions. Both the Eisbruch and Seltzer/Shore families have been AARC members since their children were very young, 1995 and 2000, respectively.

I interviewed Isaac Shore this week, the very day he returned from an overnight orientation at the College of Wooster, a small liberal arts college near Akron, OH, about 3 hours drive from Ann Arbor. Isaac became bar mitzvah at AARC four years ago.

Isaac told me how much he appreciated his slightly alternative Ann Arbor education: Hebrew Day School for elementary, Ann Arbor Open for middle school, and Community for high school. “I didn’t have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy, or people who don’t know each other,” he explained. He chose Wooster over Kalamazoo College and Michigan State, partly because it seemed the right size, about 2000 students. It helped to know that Jonah Ahuvia, the son of long-time Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Havurah members Aura and Aaron Ahuvia, is at Wooster, too. Isaac has varied interests: history, political science, biology, and physics, among them. He seemed relieved that he has another year before he should declare a major. Although Wooster is not known for its Jewish presence, it recently started offering Hebrew, he told me. And coincidently, Isaac’s roommate for the overnight enrollment process was a Jewish student from the San Francisco Bay Area. Isaac will be joining the other Wooster freshmen the last week in August.

Like Isaac, Gil Eisbruch had his bar mitzvah with the “hav.” Gil’s bar mitzvah was in 2006, a distant nine years ago. Gil, too, is a graduate of Ann Arbor’s Community High. And as of this month, he is a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Carleton College in Northfield, MN, south of the Twin Cities.  I asked Gil why he chose Carleton. Like Isaac, he said that knowing someone there was an important influence. “My next door neighbor who is four years older than me went to Carleton and liked it,” Gil told me. (Lillie Schneyer, daughter of Mark Schneyer and Debbie Field, is a rising sophomore at Carleton as well.) When he began at Carleton, Gil imagined that he’d be a math major. A slight shift led him to his computer science major, which he loved.

Turns out there is much more Jewish life at Carleton than Gil first imagined. His mom had cautioned him that he may be one of the few Jewish students. But Gil discovered that Jewish Students of Carleton is an active campus group. And his sophomore year, he lived in the Jewish Interest House, a kosher living situation for five students who organize Shabbat dinners and services that 20 to 30 students regularly attend. After his sophomore year, Gil continued to attend Shabbat services on an irregular basis, as well as participate in Jewish holiday celebrations. Another passion of Gil’s was the ultimate frisbee team—which took 5th place in last year’s national tournament. Gil made good friends among both non-Jewish and Jewish students, one of whom is planning to attend rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

This summer Gil plans on hanging out in Ann Arbor. Then, in August he’ll be moving to Milwaukee to work in the City Year program of Americorp where he’ll be working in a high school or middle school as a mentor and tutor. He hopes to eventually be a high school teacher.

Many thanks to Isaac and Gil for allowing us to profile them here.