Shifra Epstein, the former curator of ethnography at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is an independent scholar living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the University of Texas at Austin, Emory University and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Her chief areas of interest include festivals, pilgrimages and Jewish folk art. Among her publication are a catalogue, Purim: The Face and the Mask (1980), which received the National Jewish Book Award for a work on the visual arts; and The Daniel-Shpil in the Bobover Hasidic Community: From a Folk Drama to a Hasidic Ritual for Purim (1998). She is also the producer of two documentary films, including Pilgrimage of Remembrance: The Jews of Poland (1991), which received an honorable mention from the American Film and Video Association.
