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Legacies Project Oral History: Andrew Zweifler
Andrew Zweifler was born in 1930 in Newark, New Jersey. He graduated from Haverford College and Jefferson Medical College. In the 1950s he and his wife Ruth spent two years in Ashiya, Japan while he was a physician in the Air Force. Zweifler is Emeritus Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan, former Director of the Hypertension Clinic at the University Hospital, and co-founder of Physicians for Prevention of Gun Violence.
Andrew Zweifler was interviewed by students from Skyline High School in Ann Arbor in 2017 as part of the Legacies Project.
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Living Competently in a Global World
We live in an increasingly global world where people live, work, and study in countries other than their own. Even when living in our home countries, we interact with people from all over the world.
What are the skills that are needed to succeed in this global world? How do we develop and learn these skills? Recent research has shown that the answer to these questions are not as intuitive as one would suspect. Exposing yourself to other cultures does not always help and can sometimes backfire.
However, there are also many things you can do to develop your global competence skills, even if you have never left your home country!
In this talk, Professor Fiona Lee of the U-M Department of Psychology discusses some of this research, and provides concrete strategies you can use to increase your global competence. Professor Lee's research focuses on 3 main topics under the broad topic of social behaviors in organizational and work contexts: Identity Integration: How do people negotiate between their multiple identities? Power: How does having power (or not) affect the way people behave? Culture: When do cultural differences affect people and organizations?
This program was part of the Fall "Exploring the Mind" series of talks, and was co-sponsored by The University of Michigan Department of Psychology.
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Nerd Nite #38 - Bonkers Borders: Crazy Ex(clav)es, Drunken Surveyors, and Uzbeki Seas
Borders are all around us, literally! These days, too many people struggle to place Poland on a map and even have trouble identifying West Virginia. If we paid more attention to our geopolitical frontiers, we’d find not only fascinating shapes but also rich histories behind them! Was moonshine consumption involved in delineating the Carolinas? Could poker have been a driving factor in demarcating India? Is there still unclaimed land out in the world? Let’s explore these and other intriguing cases of bonkers borders!
About Alex: Alex is a Michigan alum from New York and Bulgaria who loves the borders of all three. He looks to be a neuroscientist by day and a geography hobbyist by night, a sort of “Doctor With Borders”.
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One Human Family Panel Discussion
Join us for a conversation with refugee families about their reality and with representatives from those working with refugee communities in Washtenaw County. Panelists include members of Jewish Family Services and Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights.
This event is co-sponsored by the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, and the Ann Arbor District Library.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Emmaline Weinert, the co-founder of Washtenaw Refugee Welcome, a new organization whose mission is to identify and mobilize resources to support local agencies in resettling refugees in Washtenaw County. She is also on the board of directors of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice.
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Michigan Notable Book Author and U-M Professor Sally Howell Discusses Her Book “Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past”
Michigan Notable Books Award winning author Sally Howell speaks about the history of Islam in Detroit, a city that is home to several of the nation’s oldest and most diverse Muslim communities.
In the early 1900s, there were thousands of Muslims in Detroit. Most came from Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and British India. In 1921, they built the nation’s first mosque in Highland Park. By the 1930s, new Islam-oriented social movements were taking root among African Americans in Detroit. By the 1950s, Albanians, Arabs, African Americans, and South Asians all had mosques and religious associations in the city, and they were confident that Islam could be, and had already become, an American religion. When immigration laws were liberalized in 1965, new immigrants and new African American converts rapidly became the majority of U.S. Muslims. For them, Detroit’s old Muslims and their mosques seemed oddly Americanized, even unorthodox.
Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past explores the rise of Detroit’s earliest Muslim communities. It documents the culture wars and doctrinal debates that ensued as these populations confronted Muslim newcomers who did not understand their manner of worship or the American identities they had created. Looking closely at this historical encounter, it provides a new interpretation of the possibilities and limits of Muslim incorporation in American life and shows how Islam has become American in the past and how the anxieties many new Muslim Americans and non-Muslims feel about the place of Islam in American society today are not inevitable, but are part of a dynamic process of political and religious change that is still unfolding.
Sally Howell is Assistant Professor of History and Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
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Memories of Tubingen
Since 1965, Ann Arbor has established six sister city relationships. Tubingen, the first community invited to be a sister city, was compared to Ann Arbor by someone who had lived in both places “like twins raised in different countries. There is the university, the students, the river, the mills.”
On December 9, 1965, the official charter of the Tubingen and Ann Arbor partnership was presented to City Council, followed by a concert of Christmas carols sung in German by Ann Arbor High School students. Visits between the two areas started as soon as the decision was finalized. This event brought together several participants from both countries in this long-standing partnership to reminisce about the cities' 50-year relationship.
Speakers include:
• Ute Bechdorf, Director of the Deutsch-Amerikan Institute of Tubingen;
• Carolyn Melchers, local resident who, as a young Pioneer High School German teacher went on an early trip to Tubingen and met the man who would become her husband;
• Josie Parker, Library Director;
• Marianne Rauer, who moved to Ann Arbor from Germany after WWII and who has been very involved in the Sister City Program;
• Grace Shackman, local Ann Arbor historian;
• Ingrid Sheldon, Former Mayor of Ann Arbor
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Around The World With Jeff Price
Join world traveler Jeff Price as he shares the story of how he said goodbye to his job, sold all his possessions and embarked on a journey that took him around the world. His route included stops in Hawaii, Fiji, Malta, Italy and Portugal, to name a few. As part of his journey he completed the 500 mile pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago through Spain and France where he met fellow travelers from all over the world and forged bonds of friendship that will last a lifetime. Jeff will share stories, pictures and answer questions about his life as a modern day nomad.
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Ten Thousand Villages And The Fair Trade Movement
Did you know that the global fair trade movement began with the founding of Ten Thousand Villages more than 60 years ago? Pioneering businesswoman Edna Ruth Byler was struck by the overwhelming poverty she witnessed during a 1946 trip to Puerto Rico and was moved to take action. She ignited a global movement to eradicate poverty through market-based solutions. For the next 30 years, Byler worked tirelessly to connect entrepreneurs in developing countries with market opportunities in North America. From humble beginnings, Ten Thousand Villages has now grown to a global network of social entrepreneurs working to empower and provide economic opportunities to artisans in developing countries.
Bill Henderson, store manager, and founding member Norene Kanagy share fair trade principles, the history, and mission and tell the local history of the formation of the Ten Thousand Villages store at 303 S. Main St., Ann Arbor.
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I Remember When: Gemeutlichkeit-Yassoo
In this episode, host Ted Trost profiles two of Ann Arbor's largest ethnic communities, the Greeks and Germans. Trost talks with U-M German professor Frederick Wahr about Ann Arbor's German history; and Edith and Paul Kempf, about their personal memories and the importance of music in their family. Ted also interviews Frank Kokenakes, his sister, Helen Kokales, and Anthony Preketes about Greek history and culture in Ann Arbor.
Written and directed by: Catherine Anderson
Executive Producer : Catherine Anderson
Graphic Artist: Eric Anderson
Sponsored by the Ann Arbor Public Library, with help from the Ann Arbor Sesquicentennial Commission and the University of Michigan Speech Department.
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Wandering the High Himalayas With Will Weber Of JOURNEYS International
Will Weber, founder of JOURNEYS International of Ann Arbor, shares images and memories of some of his favorite vistas, valleys and villages from more than four decades of travel in Himalayan Asia. Come travel with Will as he shares his experiences in Ladakh, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma and his encounters with Buddhist highland cultures. Will Weber made his first trip to Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer high school science teacher in 1971 and has returned to lead trips to some area of the Himalayas nearly every year since.Ann Arbor's JOURNEYS International is the longest standing family-owned global eco-tourism company in the US, offering full-service exotic, guided cross-cultural explorations, nature safaris, treks and eco-tours in remote corners of Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific.