Dog trainer extraordinaire Rudolphina Menzel’s research into canine psychology was revolutionary. Between the wars she enjoyed a pan-European reputation as one of the foremost breeders and trainers of police dogs. A fervent Zionist, Rudophina trained hundreds of dogs to protect Jewish lives and property in pre-state Palestine – teaching Jews to like dogs and training dogs to serve Jews was her unique Zionist mission. Biographer Susan Martha Kahn discusses her life and legacy with poet and executive director of Jewish Renaissance, Aviva Dautch.

In Association with Jewish Renaissance.

Susan Martha Kahn is the associate director at The Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School. She has published in science studies, animal studies, and Jewish studies, and her book Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Duke 2000) won a National Jewish Book Award, as well as the Eileen Basker Prize for Outstanding Research in Gender and Health from the American Anthropological Association.

Poet and academic Aviva Dautch is the Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance magazine and the resident expert on BBC Radio 4’s ‘On Form’, a series exploring the recent resurgence in formal poetry. Her translation of The Eighth Crossing, a book-length poem by Suhrab Sirat about his refugee journey from Afghanistan to the UK, was published in 2021 by Exiled Writers Ink.