By Elisheva Appel
Barbara Bensoussan is the quintessential Jewish dropout who never finished her Ph.D. but went on to teach English and Introductory Psychology at the University of Michigan. She worked as a social worker for OHEL, an ESL teacher, and various other stints before easing into full time writing. Her 20-year-plus career followed the growth of frum publishing, and she wrote articles for many Jewish publications before settling in at Mishpacha. Barbara is the author of the young adult novel A New Song (Targum), the food memoir The Well-Spiced Life (Israel Bookshop), and the co-author of Converted Masters, an art book; she has also authored private memoirs and taught writing workshops. All of this, of course, gets accomplished in the margins of Barbara’s day job as a wife, mother and grandmother.
Having learned for more than a decade in the Mir yeshiva, and graduated from the Ner L’Elef outreach training program, Gedalia Guttentag co-founded Inspired Tel Aviv, a kiruv center serving international olim to Israel’s cultural capital, where he and his wife teach. In addition, he is currently completing his semicha.
Gedalia writes the Eye on Europe and Knesset Channel columns, and is a regular feature contributor.
Gershon Burstyn is the news and feature editor for Mishpacha magazine. Before coming to Mishpacha, Gershon was the editor of World Jewish Digest, a monthly magazine, and worked as a reporter and editor at Bloomberg News, SmartMoney.com, People magazine, and freelanced widely. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Ramat Bet Shemesh with his wife and four kids.
Sara Eisemann is a certified clinical therapist from Oak Park, MI, where she resides with her husband of 30 years in their almost empty nest. A proud mother of five she has been known to babble unabashedly into her phone when her new grandson is on the line. Completing a Master’s in Social Work at Wayne State University, Sara practiced at Jewish Family Service of Detroit, providing individual, group and family therapy. She discovered a new passion for human dignity when she joined Windows, the domestic violence prevention program at JFS. Switching careers in 2007 joining Camp Agudah Midwest enabled her to use her people skills in a completely different context. Currently, Sara acts as a dating coach, the occasional lecturer, and a Family First columnist answering shidduch questions in MatchQuest. She is dedicated to bringing self-awareness, authenticity and depth to our relationships with each other and with Hashem.
