Janet R. Kirchheimer is Assistant to the President and LEAP Program Manager. A poet, essayist, creative writing teacher, and filmmaker, she is the author of How to Spot One of Us (2007, Clal) and Seduction: Out of Eden, co-authored with Jaclyn Piudik, (Kelsay Books, 2022). Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and online publications. Janet has taught and given talks and readings for a wide variety of organizations. Her chapter “At the Water’s Edge: Poetry and the Holocaust” appeared in The Psychoanalytic Textbook of Holocaust Studies (Rutledge).
She is the producer of AFTER: Poetry Destroys Silence, a performance film where contemporary poets confront the Shoah and discuss the responsibility of art to respond.
Janet is also a gold-star licensed New York City Sightseeing Guide conducting tours about the first Jewish community in North America, founded in 1654. When she’s not giving tours, Janet is busy being a hyphenated American – the daughter of Holocaust survivors, an avid reader, knitter, opera lover, and that’s just the beginning. Janet brings her passion and curiosity about life and Judaism to everything she does at Clal.