Evening of Roses

Learn More about Our Honorees:

Daniel Mendelsohn
Sister Rose Thering Fund Award in the Humanities and Holocaust Literature 

Daniel Mendelsohn was born in New York in 1960 and educated at the University of Virginia, where he received his B. A. in Classics in 1982, and at Princeton, where he received his Ph.D. in Classics. His eleven books include the international bestsellers An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic and The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million; a translation, with commentary, of the Modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy; and three collections of essays, most recently Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones (2018). His most recent book, Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate (2020), was a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020, and was named Best Foreign Book of the Year in France. Over the past thirty years Mr. Mendelsohn has contributed over three hundred essays, reviews, articles, and translations to numerous publications, most frequently The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, and has been a columnist for The New York Times Book Review, New York magazine, and BBC Culture. His writing for mainstream publications covers a wide range of subjects, from Classical civilization to contemporary literature, as well as film, theater, opera, and television.

Mr. Mendelsohn’s honors include the National Jewish Book Award, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Prose Style, the Society for Classical Studies Presidents’ Medal, the Prix Médicis in France and the Malaparte Prize, Italy’s highest literary honor for foreign authors. In 2022, he was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Republic of France.

Daniel Mendelsohn, who is also Editor-at-Large of the New York Review of Books and Director of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, a charitable trust promoting nonfiction writers, teaches literature at Bard College and lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. His translation of the Odyssey will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2024.

Cantor Perry S. Fine
Inaugural Recipient of the Sister Rose Thering Fund Clergy Award

Cantor Perry Fine has devoted much of his time and passion as a cantor to interfaith outreach. He is the co-founder and principal conductor of Voices in Harmony, an interfaith choral ensemble that has served the Essex County community for the past 27 years. This group has performed in numerous concerts and interfaith services throughout the region and with pride, has been a musical presence at numerous Evening of Roses celebrations over the years.

This year, Cantor Fine celebrates both his 12th anniversary at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston and his 32nd year in the cantorate. He has been singing Jewish music ever since his days as a boy soprano soloist in his Baltimore, Maryland, hometown with Cantor Hillel Lipsicas' High Holy Day choir. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Cantor Fine has given concerts and lectures around the country on various aspects of Jewish music. His benefit programs with regional colleagues helped establish the Oheb Beth Yisrael Scholarship Fund for Jewish Theological Seminary cantorial students. For many years, he toured with the trio ensemble, Cantors’ Cabaret, highlighting the music of Jewish Broadway.

Cantor Fine has been awarded the Conservative Movement's Nathan H. Winter Award for Professional Excellence and in 2015 was recognized for his work with the SOMA (South Orange/Maplewood) Community Coalition on Race. Since 1997, Cantor Fine has served on the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary, teaching Biblical Cantillation to a generation of budding cantorial students.

Cantor Fine’s recordings include settings of the Yom Kippur Service for the Milken Archive Series of Jewish Music, as well as his innovative Friday Night Live worship service.

Cantor Fine is married to Miki, together this year celebrating their 22nd wedding anniversary. He is the proud stepfather to Yonatan and Daniel, and Saba (grandfather) to Lyla Rose.

Sister Rose Thering Fund Founding Supporters

Julia Altholz*
David Bossman,Ph.D.*
Susan Feinstein
Eugene Fisher, Ph.D.
Rev. Lawrence E. Frizzell, D.Phil.
Sister Mary Gomolka, R.S.M.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg
Blu Greenberg
Luna Kaufman*
Marlene Jacobs
Murray Laulicht, Esq.*
Jacqueline Levine*
Karan Oleckna
Kenneth Oleckna, Esq.
Marilyn Rosenbaum
Howard N. Tepper, M.D.
Regina Townsend
Joseph Volker, Ph.D.
Robert Werbel, Esq.*
Marcia Robbins-Wilf, Ed.D.*

*Present at the initial 1992 organizational meeting.

Please contact the Sister Rose Thering Fund for Education in Jewish-Christian Studies by phone (973) 761-9006 or by email [email protected] for more information.