Prof. Sherry Turkle, author of The Empathy Diaries, Named 2021 National Jewish Book Award Winner

Famed MIT pro­fes­sor, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist, and lead­ing voice on the rela­tion­ship between tech­nol­o­gy and human inter­ac­tion, Sher­ry Turkle has spent her career ana­lyz­ing the emo­tion­al com­po­nent of the dig­i­tal world. Now she turns the lens on her own life. An only child raised in part by dot­ing grand­par­ents among the Russ­ian immi­grant pop­u­la­tion in post-War Brook­lyn, Sher­ry Zimmerman’s life was mired in secrets. Her father dis­ap­peared ear­ly, but his last name didn’t. One day her moth­er announced that she was being adopt­ed by her step­fa­ther, thus Sher­ry Turkle was ​“born.” That the fam­i­ly nev­er dis­cussed any of these events is unsur­pris­ing — there was much to sweep under the rug at that time — but Sher­ry was for­ev­er haunt­ed by her miss­ing father.