Mosh & Deb Mowshowitz
Guests of Honor
Deborah and Mosh met as fellow graduate students at Einstein College of Medicine in the mid-sixties. While Deborah came from a serious Conservative Jewish upbringing, Mosh had been sent to Orthodox Yeshivas. Their friendship began with Jewish observance on campus, and their shared—sometimes conflicting—interest with Jewish Life continued to be a dominant theme in their friendship, courtship, and marriage.
Early participants in the Havurah Movement (Mosh even Chaired the National Havurah Committee in the early 2000s), they were among the founders of the West Side Minyan that joined the Ansche Chesed synagogue in the 70s en masse to save it from financial ruin. They have been stalwart members of the shul ever since. Deborah and Mosh have been fortunate (or unfortunate) to live so close to the shul that for many years, when the morning minyan was struggling to get a quorum, they were the first on-call to rush over and make the minyan. They have been at AC for so long that they are being honored for the second time!
Deborah and Mosh are hyperactive members of AC. Deborah served on the Board, the Chevra Kadisha, and was on the search committee that got us our wonderful current Rabbi. Mosh taught courses in Judaics at the shul and subbed for Rabbi Kalmanofsky, leading his Wednesday Talmud class when he was away.
Professionally, Deborah and Mosh are both Molecular Biologists. Deborah is a legendary teacher at Columbia (she won the University President’s Teaching Award), for many years heading the notoriously rigorous, required pre-med course in Biology, with hundreds of students and a score of teaching assistants each year; all while serving as Director of Undergraduate Programs & Labs. Now semi-retired, she teaches a science seminar for first year students as part of the Columbia Core curriculum.
Finally retired, Mosh started out as an academic at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, moved to senior positions in the biotech industry, and eventually landed back in academia at Columbia, where he taught an advanced course in Immunology (featured on a student-run web site as “one of the courses you must take before you die”).
Deborah and Mosh are thrilled that they have dear friends in all the minyanim that meet at Ansche Chesed.