He was the first professor of Afro-American studies at Harvard University. In recognition of his merits, the Ephraim Isaac Prize for Excellence in African Languages is given annually to the Harvard graduate who writes the best essay in African studies.

Early life
Isaac was born to an Ethiopian mother and a Yemeni Jewish father in Wolega Kifele Hager, Nejo, Ethiopia, in 1936. His actual date of birth is unknown. In high school, he randomly chose 29 May as his nominal birthday. He received his early education in Ethiopia.

Career
Isaac has been a professor at various universities and has published scholarly articles and books. He was the first faculty appointment in Harvard University’s Department of African and Afro-American Studies in 1969, and he played an important role in the early history of the department. Committed to this emerging field of scholarship, Isaac continued as a faculty member until 1977 and taught almost half of the students enrolled in the program.

Isaac has also lectured at:

Princeton University Department of Near Eastern Studies, 1983–1985; introduced the first African language course in 1984; was visiting professor of religion and African American studies 1995–2001; and remains a fellow of Butler College.
Hebrew University (ancient Semitic languages)
University of Pennsylvania (religion, Semitic languages)
Howard University (Divinity School)
Lehigh University (religion)
Bard College (religion, history)
His subjects range from those mentioned above to Biblical Hebrew, rabbinic literature, Ethiopian history, the concept and history of slavery and ancient African civilizations. He was a fellow at the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Advanced Studies. He has been a fellow at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute (1985–1986) and at the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton (1989–1992).

Isaac had a long-running dispute with the president of Harvard regarding the denial of his strong nomination for tenure by the then Department of African American Studies. After several appeals by the president of Harvard to drop the charges, Isaac won a major victory when the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston ruled in his favor by that rejected the president’s appeal, after which the president proposed to settle the case out of court, offering Isaac a fellowship position and paying all legal fees.

In November 2021, Canadian author Jeff Pearce leaked a video that appeared to show Isaac in a virtual meeting with Eleni Gabre-Madhin and several Western diplomats working to topple Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government to create a transitional government in favor of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) during the Tigray War. Despite both being able to refute the allegations, they were barred from traveling to Ethiopia, and a wide range of condemnation came from within Ethiopia and its diaspora.

Peace contributions and activities
Contributions

As a peace activist, Isaac has made important contributions to peace and reconciliation. He founded an ad hoc Peace Committee at a critical stage in 1989. The committee – a dozen Ethiopian elders – facilitated bilateral negotiations between the government and conflicting parties at home and abroad. This created a forum for a peaceful resolution to the violence and bloody conflict. The committee accelerated the July 1991 end of the 30-year civil war in the Horn of Africa. The committee also helped raise funds to defray the cost of the Addis Ababa Conference for a Peaceful and Democratic Transition at the end of the war. A transitional government of Ethiopia was formed, and the Transitional Council later became the Parliament of Ethiopia. He participated in the conference as an observer, and gave one of the three concluding addresses. In 1992, he organized, with the help of fellow elders, Dr. Haile Sellasie Belay and Dr. Tilahun Beyene, an international teleconference of religious reconciliation – with eight conflicting Ethiopian archbishops and several other religious leaders. It resulted in the resolution of serious religious disputes that arose among the archbishops of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church regarding church administration and appointment of a patriarch.

Between 1998 and 2000, he led an Ethio-Eritrean peace delegation to Ethiopia and Eritrea during the tragic war between the two. This delegation was the only group from the region that both sides found acceptable or welcome. Since 2007, he has promoted reconciliation and repatriation of several Ethiopian and Somali liberation front movements in exile. In 2007, he negotiated the release of 30 Ethiopian political leaders and members of parliament. Isaac has also negotiated the release of about 35,000 prisoners and has helped organize inter-political party dialogues, an election board, national police chiefs and justices seminars. This was done in cooperation with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and other experts, and an interfaith symposium to promote the value of democratic and human rights to strengthen peace and reconciliation efforts. In 2009, he was actively engaged behind the scenes in the Ethiopian government treaty with a major branch of the Ogaden National Liberation Front. In 2012, he was involved with the release of two kidnapped Germans and in 2013, the release of two Swedish journalists. He continues his peace and reconciliation work.

Activities
Isaac is currently the international chair of the Horn of Africa Board of Peace and Development Organization (Addis Ababa, Asmara) and the former president of the Yemenite Jewish Federation of America. He founded (1960), and was chair of the Committee for Ethiopian Literacy, the first African/Ethiopian federal tax-exempt organization: the National Literacy Campaign of Ethiopia (NCLO), for which he was executive director from 1967 to 1974, which made millions literate in the late 1960s. In 1959, he organized the founding meeting of the Ethiopian Students Association in North America (ESANA) in Chicago, becoming the first president of the organization.

He is on editorial boards of two international scholarly journals: Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Second Temple Jewish Literature. Isaac is a member of the board or advisory council of several interfaith and intercultural groups and organizations, nationally and internationally. These include the Temple of Understanding, the Institute of Religion and Public Policy, Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, Princeton Fellowship in Prayer, Institute for Jewish Community Research, and the Oxford Forum in England. In this capacity, Isaac has contributed to numerous peace and reconciliation dialogues in the Middle East, Africa and Ireland.

In the 1980s he was an active member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Alumni Association against Apartheid. He was nominated twice to the Harvard University Board of Overseers on an Anti-apartheid slate along with fifteen other distinguished Harvard alumni, including those who struggled against South African Apartheid and Archbishop Tutu. In 1993 (Chicago, IL) he was a signatory to the groundbreaking Document Toward a Global Ethic along with the Dalai Lama, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, and others, as a Jewish delegate to the Parliament of World’s Religions and a member of the about 150 Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. He was the first to propose in October 1993 to the Parliament the idea of a “united nations” of world religions (UR) to promote world peace and prosperity. Between 1994 and 2005 (New York, NY), he was an active member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy at the height of their involvement with the Northern Ireland peace process. In 2004 (Amman, Jordan) he contributed to peace meetings as a member of the peace delegation of Peacemakers in Action of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, sponsored by Prince Hassan Ibn Talal with the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. In 2005 (Amman, Jordan) Isaac also contributed to other peace-building symposia among the three followers of the Religio

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The study, which appears in Scientific Reports, shows that wine has an effect on one’s glymphatic function, or the way the brain removes toxins. To clear itself of damaging and accumulated proteins like tau and beta amyloid, which are often linked with dementia, the brain pumps in cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) to act as a flushing solution. All sorts of variables can influence the glymphatic system’s operation, including trauma, stroke, and excessive alcohol intake.
But when researchers dosed the mice in the study with moderate alcohol—amounting to 2.6 drinks daily—the glymphatic system was more efficient, removing more waste and exhibiting less inflammation than the teetotaling control mice.

As is usually the case when it comes to booze, you can have too much of a good thing. When mice got the equivalent of 7.9 drinks daily, their glymphatic system grew sluggish until the overindulging was terminated.

“Studies have shown that low-to-moderate alcohol intake is associated with a lesser risk of dementia, while heavy drinking for many years confers an increased risk of cognitive decline,” lead study author Maiken Nedergaard, of the University of Rochester Medical Center, said in a press statement. “This study may help explain why this occurs. Specifically, low doses of alcohol appear to improve overall brain health.”

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As a teenager I only had one pair of jeans and became terribly embarrassed and ashamed when a cute boy at school smiled at me, because I was certain that he was laughing at my old jeans.

It took me many years to summon the strength to share my story: I grew up in poverty in the Ukraine (part of the Soviet Union at the time) and later in Israel, after my parents relocated there due to persecution based on a religion we didn’t follow or even know much about.

My parents were working many hours to make ends meet and we barely had money for food, everything else was considered a luxury we couldn’t afford.

After college graduation and completing my service in the Israeli Navy, I married my high-school sweetheart of 5 years. He soon turned out to be an abusive husband. I suffered years of daily mental abuse and humiliation, feeling too ashamed to tell anyone and having such low self-esteem that I thought that I probably deserved it. Living in New Jersey, we would go, on a regular basis, to see our friends in Brooklyn – a few couples we’d met when we moved to the United States. Consistently – after every visit – I would get hell on earth for a long time with him analyzing and criticizing what seemed to be my every word and action. We put up a great façade: our friends had no idea of the hell I was going through, believing us to be a loving and compatible couple. After a while I participated less and less in the interactions during our visits, in fear of his wrath. The abuse escalated and increased even more after our daughter was born.

One day, after a long sequence of mental abuse and threats of violence, I seized an opportunity when he was in the shower, grabbed in my arms the dearest thing in the world for me: my toddler daughter, and ran away. That same day, I had to seek police protection, as he came after me and threatened to kill me.

The story ends with me being swept off my feet by a prince charming on a white horse, as we rode happily-ever-after into the sunset… well; it was actually a two-seater white convertible (car). I am now in a loving and supportive relationship with my soul-mate and every year of the last twenty has been like a continuous honeymoon.

Since a young age, I have memories of being able to advise people as to the solution to their problems. It seemed easy and natural to sense myself in their situation and feel what the appropriate move for them was. As far back as I can remember when I was still in Ukraine, I had a desire to help people, to better their life. At every opportunity I would volunteer it, much to the disdain of my parents. People often asked for more.

I refined and developed my expertise many years later, when I was the director and cofounder of a marriage-minded introduction service, Right Match. In the position of a matchmaker, I spend countless hours guiding and coaching my clients as to the best way to present themselves and how to develop a happy, long-lasting romantic relationship that would ultimately lead to marriage. During that time I received many letters from clients thanking me for matches that were way beyond their expectations. It was easy for me: after seeing the person I simply felt his/her personality. This – combined with graphology analysis, personality testing and interviews – made the matching effective and successful. It gave me a tremendous satisfaction to hear that as a result of my help, many people’s lives had been changed and improved. With time I expanded to international matchmaking and established contacts in several western countries.

For many years I’ve been studying and researching the power of the mind and its ability to transform us. As a Master Clinical Hypnotherapist I was fortunate to reach thousands of people around the world and to help them better their life and achieve their highest goals. I’ve developed an in-depth hypnotherapy course that I’ve been teaching for over 12 years and have certified many hypnotherapists. My subliminal, audible and hypnosis self-help series of recordings have been online since the 90s, with over 40 different subjects that use “whole brain” methods to guide the listener to let go of limitations and transform their life.

As a Reiki Master Healer I’ve been teaching and training students to heal themselves and others. I was fortunate to live on three different continents and I feel that it gave me multiple perspectives and an uncanny ability to look in from outside and feel how best to help the person I am working with.

artist: Jonathon Earl Bowser

I receive thank-you letters from around the world for helping people tap their unlimited potential, improve their lives, find their soulmates and lead happy and productive lives; I feel that I am learning more and more every single day and the love in my heart is expanding and multiplying!

In the 1990s I felt a strong desire to study the 2500-year-old Japanese healing method of Reiki (literal translation: Universal Life Force Energy). I had the privilege of completing all of the levels with Diane Stein (and became a Reiki Master in 1995. I don’t think words can begin to express the experience…!!! It seemed as if many doors simultaneously opened around me and my awareness spread in many directions… and I felt as one with all. My consciousness soared up and about and the sensation of Universal Union was stronger than it had ever been before. And the amazing phenomenon is – that it has remained this way ever since…

At that time I created and trademarked Reikinosis, which is a revolutionary healing modality that facilitates deep healing on all levels. Since then many clients were able to benefit from it.

Is it time to come down to earth? When you listen to my recordings you’ll feel the sincerity and love with which I’ve created them. And, of course, I personally make sure that the Reiki healing energy is within each and every recording. After you try some of my general recordings, I’m sure you will find them beyond your expectation. When you are ready to progress further on your evolutionary path, you have a choice of seminars or one-on-one coaching with me.

As we work together to achieve your deepest desires, you will find that you become more in touch with yourself. As you become more in touch with yourself, the sessions will touch your core issues deep inside your subconscious more intimately, and the results will become more powerful and effective.

And as the result of these deeply personalized sessions, you will find that as you grow – you progress towards your own personal happiness!

I’m a Libra-Tiger (Chinese horoscope) and spend my free time (when I have the time…) scuba diving, rock climbing, sky diving, mountain bike riding, dancing, enjoying my wonderful daughter and amazing son and my kind and loving husband and reading, reading, reading.

I have been been published in several magazines such as Third Eye and Inner Realm. Some online articles of mine:

Planet Lightworker (“Mate Quest: Attracting and Finding the Right Mate for You”)

Yoga.com (“Tips on Losing Weight”)

Check out excerpts from my book on finding a mate.

I am …

a Doctor of Divinity in Paranormal Studies, Atlantian Mystery Schools and Raymond Moody School of The Paranormal.

an Interdenominational Ordained Minister, Atlantian Mystery Schools and Raymond Moody School of The Paranormal.

a Certified Reiki Master, Diane Stein.

an Instructor of Hypnotherapy, The American Board of Hypnotherapy.

a Certified Instructor of Ultra Depth (the Sichort State), Ramey Hypnosis Association.

a Certified Instructor of Somnambulistic Hypnosis, Ramey Hypnosis Association.

a Certified Instructor for Smoking Cessation and Weight Loss Hypnotherapy, Hypnodyne Foundation.

a Past Life Regression Therapist, International Board for Regression Therapy.

a Therapeutic Specialist in Regression Therapy and Chakra Therapy, International Association of Therapeutic Specialists.

a Certified Master Clinical Hypnotherapist, International Association of Counselors and Therapists.

a Certified Hypnotherapist, The American Board of Hypnotherapy.

a Certified Hypnologist, Hypnodyne Foundation.

a Certified Hypnotherapist, National Guild of Hypnotists.

a Certified Hypno-Anesthesiologist, International Association of Counselors and Therapists.

an Ambassador to Russia, Hypnosis International Board of Registration.

an Ambassador to Israel, Hypnosis International Board of Registration.

Get help today, schedule a free consultation with Dr. Inessa to discover how she can best support you.

Long distance sessions are available by telephone or Skype and in-person session can be scheduled in several convenient locations around the world.

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