Israeli-American
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author, mother and activist. She is best known as the mother of Koby Mandell, a thirteen-year-old American boy who was murdered near their home in Tekoa in May 2001. Sherri Mandell and her husband, Rabbi Seth Mandell, founded the Koby Mandell Foundation, and she wrote a book about the murder, ''The Blessing of a Broken Heart''.
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1977. She received an M.A. in creative writing from Colorado State University and taught writing at the
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
and at Penn State University. She is the author of ''Writers of the Holocaust,'' and has written for numerous magazines and journals, including ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', ''
The Denver Post
''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...
'' and ''
The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
'', and ''
Hadassah Magazine
''Hadassah Magazine'' is an American magazine published by the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America. It covers Israel, the Jewish world, and subjects of interest to American Jewish women. It was established in 1914.
Esther G. Gottes ...
''. She and her husband currently write a blog at JPost.co Heart Earned Wisdom
Family
Sherri and Seth Mandell briefly lived in Israel, where she gave birth to their first child, Yaakov (Koby). In 1996, with her husband and their four children, she returned to Israel where she still lives today. Sherri and Seth, a rabbi and Israel activist, spent several years in Chinuch, Jewish education, prior to moving to Israel. Seth was the executive director of the University of Maryland Hillel in College Park, Maryland, from 1990 to 1996, and prior to that was the director of the Penn State University Hillel. The time they spent as a Hillel family, particularly when they were living in
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...
, a suburb of Washington, DC, interested them in activism.
Murder of Koby Mandell
On May 8, 2001, Koby and a friend, Yosef Ishran, took off from school to hike in a canyon close to their home in Tekoa. Koby and Yosef were found bludgeoned to death with stones, an act attributed to Palestinian terrorists, although the murderers were never found. Sherri Mandell founded the Koby Mandell Foundation in their son's memory. She is featured as an expert speaker on the documentary '' Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in Israel''.
The Koby Mandell Foundation
The Koby Mandell Foundation, established in 2002, runs healing programs for families that have been directly affected by terror in Israel, having lost an immediate family member to a terrorist attack or an act of war. The Foundation sponsors Camp Koby, its flagship program, for children that have lost a parent or a sibling in an act of terror; Mothers' Healing Retreats for women bereaved by terrorist violence, and similar retreats for widows who have lost a husband to terror or war. Sherri currently directs the Mothers' Healing Retreats.
Books
''The Blessing of a Broken Heart'' (
Toby Press
Toby Press was an American comic-book company that published from 1949 to 1955. Founded by Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp and himself an established comic strip writer, the company published reprints of Capp's '' Li'l Abner'' s ...