Ansche Chesed: A Synagogue Clings to Life
by Michael Precker
After graduating from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 1977, Precker worked for four months at The Associated Press in New York, then spent the next 11 years in Israel, first with Associated Press, then as the Middle East correspondent of The Dallas Morning News. In 1985 he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from South Africa. In 1988 he moved to Dallas, where his DMN career ranged from assistant national editor to humor columnist, offbeat feature writer to health reporter, with many return trips to Israel for the newspaper. Last year he accepted a voluntary buyout from The Dallas Morning News and now is a freelance writer in Dallas, plotting several books for which there never seemed to be time before. His wife, Ruthie, a native Israeli, teaches Hebrew at the University of North Texas. They have two sons: Nadav, an engineer in Tel Aviv, and Daniel, a student in Dallas. He is publicity chair and board member at Congregation Beth Torah in Richardson, a Dallas suburb. He believes Texas is more civilized than most New Yorkers probably think, but wishes desperately that he would have bought the apartment on West 81st Street that he sublet for $180 a month in 1977.