Robin Judd completed her Ph.D. in European and Jewish history at the University of Michigan in 2000. Since then she has served as an assistant professor of history at the Ohio State University (OSU). Judd has published a number of articles concerning Jewish ritual behavior and debates in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, including “The Politics of Beef: Animal Advocacy and the Kosher Butchering Debates in Germany” (Jewish Social Studies December 2003) and “Circumcision and the Modern German-Jewish Experience” in My Covenant in Your Flesh: Circumcision, Gender, and Culture across Jewish History (2003). She is currently completing her first monograph, titled Cutting Identities: Jewish Rituals and German Politics.
In 1990 alone, advice columnist “Dear Abby” and her staff received over fifty-five thousand letters from men and women of all ages, classes, nationalities, sexual orientations, and religions. Born Pauline Friedman, Van Buren was best known for the witty, commonsense advice she gave hundreds of millions of readers.
For over forty years, the Ann Landers advice column—written by Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer—helped lovelorn teens, confused parents, couples on the brink of divorce, grieving widows, and a myriad of others who were in need of counsel. Translated into over twenty languages, Ann Landers reached millions of readers with her clear, witty and sometimes sarcastic column.
