Englewood—To honor the 18^th yahrzeit of his mother, Ruth, former Englewood mayor Michael Wildes sponsored a lecture by Harvard Professor, Israel advocate, author and attorney Alan Dershowitz  for the Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE). MJE is a non-profit organization founded by Rabbi Mark N. Wildes, Michael’s brother, in 1998.

More than 500 guests attended the event, including luminaries Rabbi Norman Lamm, Rabbi David Bleich and actress Kelley Rutherford,

Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is a Brooklyn native and a graduate of Yale Law School, who joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Justice Arthur Goldberg. Dershowitz has been called both “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and “Israel’s single most visible defender.” He has published more than 1,000 articles in magazines, newspapers, journals and blogs including The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and Ha’aretz. Additionally, Professor Dershowitz is the author of 30 fiction and non-fiction works with a worldwide audience, including The New York Times #1 bestseller Chutzpah, The Vanishing American Jew and The Case for Israel 1 &2. Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel has said of Dershowitz: “If there had been a few people like Alan Dershowitz during the 1930s and 1940s, the history of European Jewry might have been different.”

MJE, the organization which sponsored the event, is a cutting edge program for young Jewish professionals in their 20’s and 30’s, with little or no background in Judaism who are interested in connecting more to each other, to their community and to Judaism. MJE is a place where young men and women can explore Jewish life and meet new people in a wide range of inclusive, engaging and innovative programs for thousands of young Jewish professionals, including parties, an annual ski trip, classes, beginner prayer services, marching in the Israel day parade, Friday night dinners and much, much more. MJE was founded in memory of Ruth B. Wildes, z’’l, For more information about MJE, visit: http://www.jewishexperience.org

One can hear the Professor’s address at: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/801005/Guest_Speaker_MJE/The_Vanishing_Jew