About the Author
Michael (Menachem) Fox, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in New York. In past years, Michael taught psychology in the School of Education at the City College of New York and at Pratt Institute. He has also worked as a psychologist in the public schools of Yonkers and Mamaroneck, New York. A native Yiddish speaker, in the past two decades he has worked with the Yiddish-speaking children and families of the Hasidic communities of Brooklyn.
Remaining close to his roots in younger days, Michael/Menachem taught Yiddish and Yiddish singing in the secular after-school program’s of the Worker’s Circle and the Sholem Aleichem Institute. For a number of years, he led the Yiddish singing class at the ColumbiaUniversity/YIVO Summer Yiddish Program. Along with Miriam Hoffman and Rena Berkowicz Borow, he co-led the Yiddish theater workshop at the Oxford University summer Yiddish program. In collaboration with Zalmen Mlotek and Joanne Borts, Menachem co-created, was principal songwriter, and performed in Kids & Yiddish, a musical show for families, at the National; Yiddish Theater/Folksbiene. Ever-changing and renewed, Kids & Yiddish ran for eleven Chanukah seasons. Menachem also co-wrote and performed in Children Of… at the American Jewish Theater. He was a principal actor in Two by Wolf with New Yiddish Rep.
Menachem is the author (so far) of two plays, a children’s book, and three novels, in addition to this memoir. He lives in New York City with his life partner Rena Berkowicz Borow. His three adult children, Josh, Alex, and Oriana, are all artists who share their unique and diverse talents around the world.
Kids & Yiddish Album produced by Lauren Sklamberg of the Klezmatics