Bernard D. Starr

Bernard Starr, PhD, is a psychologist, journalist, and professor emeritus at CUNY, Brooklyn College. At Brooklyn College, I taught developmental psychology to prospective teachers. Later I directed a graduate program in gerontology that spanned seven departments. On graduation. students in those departments received a master's degree in their fields of study and a certificate in gerontology.

Writing Credits

My writings span a variety of subjects related to my academic work and affiliations, as well as other personal interests. Since 2008 I have written extensively on climate change with an emphasis on support for science in the battle to defeat climate change. As editor-at-large at the Springer publishing company I was the founder, and for 25 years, the managing editor of the cutting-edge Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics. At Springer, I also founded and edited two series: Adulthood and Aging and later Lifestyles and Issues in Aging, and was the lead author of one of the first lifespan developmental psychology textbooks, Human Behavior and Development: Psychology in Nursing. I also penned along with my colleague Dr. Marcella Weiner The Starr-Weiner Report on Sex and Sexuality in the Mature Years which was reviewed in the science section of the New York Times. For seven years I was the writer, producer, and host of an award-winning radio commentary, The Longevity Report on WEVD-AM Radio in NYC, that was twice nominated for the Alfred I duPont Award in broadcast journalism. More recently I produced and hosted T.V. documentaries on meaningful, active, and productive living in the third age of life (Active Aging Stories). Earlier, I wrote a column, for the UPI Religion and Spirituality online journal. My 2007 book, Escape Your Own Prison: Why We Need Spirituality and Psychology To Be Truly Free published by Rowman and Littlefield explores spirituality as a psychology of consciousness. My numerous articles for the Scripps Howard News Service have appeared in newspapers throughout the United States. For several years I penned a blog at the Huffington Post. Other articles have been published in Salon, the Daily News, OpEdNews, and Barron’s financial magazine.

Antisemitism

My interest in antisemitism was sparked by the 2004 Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ. I was intrigued by two debates on the film and related issues by two biblical scholars: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Dr. Michael Brown. Then I attended a fascinating discussion at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in 2005 by a rabbi and two priests They pondered the question, how did Christianity get separated from Judaism when they have so much in common? Father Donald Senior President of the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago confirmed that Jesus was born and died a practicing Jew who never heard the word, Christian. Anglican Priest Dr. Bruce Chilton, author of “Rabbi Jesus,” agreed with the concept of a thoroughly Jewish Jesus. And Rabbi Jacob Neusner, author of numerous books including several about early Christianity, added his acknowledgment that the teachings of Jesus were based on the Torah. Why then two religions? It’s a haunting question that rings throughout The Crucifixion of Truth.