Florine Mark,
president
and CEO of
the Weight
Watchers Group
Inc., will receive
an honorary
doctoral degree
Mark
from Oakland
University
Department of Health. Mark is
also the commencement speaker
for the university’s School of
Health Sciences. For more than 30
years, Mark has been an inspira-
tional leader promoting nutrition
and healthy lifestyles through her
business endeavors, civic engage-
ment, community participation
and philanthropic contributions.

At the Annual
Oakland County
Adoption Day
ceremonies
in November,
attorney H.
Elliot Parnes of
Clarkston was the
Parnes
recipient of the
Sandra Silver Child Advocate of the
Year Award. The award is presented
to the attorney the judges believe
has shown exceptional dedication in
representing children and parents.
Parnes has been an attorney since
1978 and is presently in private
practice, specializing in juvenile law,
employment discrimination and
civil rights.

The Walled Lake
Schools Board
of Education
announced
that Kenneth
Gutman, super-
intendent of
Walled Lake
Gutman
Consolidated
School District,
has been named Region 9 of
the Michigan Association of
School Administrators Regional
Superintendent of the Year. Region
9 encompasses school districts
in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb
Counties. Gutman is recognized
for his 24 years of collective educa-
tional experience, from teacher to
superintendent, serving in leader-
ship roles in three Oakland County
school districts.

Curator Of Polish
Jewish Museum
To Speak At U-M

I

f you’ve visited a Jewish museum
lately, chances are that Barbara
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has visited
it, too.
The list of museums where she
has served as a consultant reads like
a directory of some of the most well-
known Jewish exhibitions in the world:
Beit Hatfutsot in
Tel Aviv, the Jewish
Museum Berlin,
the Jewish Museum
in New York, the
Jewish Museum
and Tolerance
Center in Moscow
and the United
Kirshenblatt-
States Holocaust
Gimblett
Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C. She now serves as
the chief curator of the core exhibition
of POLIN, the Museum of the History
of Polish Jewish in Warsaw — and she
insists no other museum is like it.
“POLIN Museum is a gesamtkunst-
werk, a remarkable integration of a
memorial site, fitting architecture
and innovative multimedia narrative
exhibition,” she said. “Nowhere else is
this story told in this way. And there is
no more appropriate place to tell this
story.”
How the museum came to be is
the subject of her talk on Jan. 13,
“Rising from the Rubble: Creating the
Museum of the History of Polish Jews.”
The free lecture is sponsored by the
University of Michigan’s Jean & Samuel
Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and
the Copernicus Program in Polish
Studies (CPPS). It will take place at
5:30 p.m. at the U-M Museum of Art’s
Stern Auditorium, 525 S. State St., Ann
Arbor.
“The core exhibition at POLIN
recovers the thousand-year history
of Polish Jews and tells the story in
the very place where it happened,”
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett explained. The
museum stands on land once part of
the Warsaw ghetto. It has attracted
over a million visitors since it opened
in 2013.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett hopes those
who attend her lecture will see why
POLIN represents much more than an
ordinary exhibit. “Museums,” she said,
“can be agents of transformation that
can move a whole society forward.”
Her visit is the latest event planned
as part of an official partnership estab-
lished last year between the museum
and the CPPS, along with the Frankel
Center.

*

The future is now.
Apply today.

At Yeshiva University, growing your understanding of,
and commitment to, Jewish values is not a club or an
extracurricular activity, it is YU.

From Talmud to mathematics, and Tanakh to biology,
combining Torah study and Jewish values with a
rigorous academic curriculum is the hallmark of YU. With
student programs across our campuses and around the
world, YU takes a global approach to learning, education
and values, creating a full college experience. This is the
essence of Torah Umadda and what sets YU apart.

Picture yourself at YU. #NowhereButHere

www.yu.edu | 212.960.5277 | yuadmit@yu.edu

www.yu.edu/apply

January 7 • 2016

17