Rabbi Barbara Borts
Rabbi Barbara Borts
Bord Member
Barbara Marcy Borts was born in Los Angeles, California. She is a rabbi in the Movement for Reform Judaism in the UK. In 1981, she was the third woman in Europe to receive the semikhah of rabbinic ordination from Leo Baeck College in London. In 1984 she was the first woman to have her own bimah in a British Reform synagogue. Since then, she has worked for several communities in England, the US and Canada. She has developed programmes for Jewish learning, liturgy and alternative forms of prayer.
Barbara Prainsack
Barbara Prainsack
Deputy secretary
Barbara Prainsack is professor for Comparative Policy Analysis at the University of Vienna, and Professor at the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine at King’s College London. Her research and teaching cover the areas of health and technology policy. She is a member of several political and scientific advisory bodies, including the Austrian Bioethics Commission and the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies. https://politikwissenschaft.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff/prainsack/
Louise Hecht
Louise Hecht
Secretary
PD Dr Louise Hecht is a historian and lives in Vienna. She was promoted doctor of Jewish History summa cum laude at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and habilitated in Jewish Cultural History at Paris Lodron University Salzburg. She is a guest professor at the University of Heidelberg. Her research focuses on the Jewish history of Central Europe since the 18th century and on modern bible translations.
Julie Handman
Julie Handman
Deputy treasurer
Julie Handman heads the Jüdischen Instituts für Erwachsenenbildung (Jewish Institute of Adult Education) in Vienna. In addition to courses on Jewish religion, history and culture, she has set up a successful Sunday school for Jewish children.
C. Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum
C. Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum
Treasurer
is a Hertha Firnberg Fellow at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Vienna, and researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. She has contributed to Bet Debora’s publications and events for many years as a conference interpreter, translator and language editor. Webseite: https://univie.academia.edu/CNaomiOsorioKupferblum
Andrea Pető
Andrea Pető
Deputy chair
Andrea Pető is Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University, Vienna, Austria, and a Doctor of Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She has written six monographs, edited thirty-one volumes and her works on gender, politics, Holocaust and war have been translated into 23 languages. She edited three pioneering books in the field of Jewish Studies with Louise Hecht, Karoline Krasuska Women and Holocaust: New Perspectives and Challenges. IBL, Warsawa, 2015, and with Judith Szapor, Maura Hametz and Marina Calloni Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe 1860-2000. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2012, with Helga Thorson The Future of Holocaust Memorialisation. Confronting Racism, Anti-Semitism, and Homophobia Through Memory Work. Tom Lantos Institute, Budapest, 2015. In 2018 she was awarded the 2018 All European Academies (ALLEA) Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. She is Doctor Honoris Causa of Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Webpage: https://people.ceu.edu/andrea_peto
Norli Lappin-Eppel
Norli Lappin-Eppel
Chairperson
Norli Lappin-Eppel is a historian and lives in Vienna. Her research focuses on Jewish history in German-speaking countries in the 20th century, in particular during World War I and the Shoah.
She has been active in Bet Debora since 2001 and was a board member of Bet Debora e.V., Berlin from 2015–2022. She is one of the founders of Bet Debora Wien in 2020.