Irene Runge

Irene Runge (born Irene Kuperman, 3 November 1942 in New York City) is an American-German-Jewish sociologist, writer and commentator.

Family provenance and early years Irene Runge was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. Her German born father, Alexander Kupfermann (1901–1994) ran a book and picture shop in Times Square, down in the subway station, She had converted to Judaism ahead of their marriage which had taken place in Palestine, and although her parents were not strictly religious in their habits, awareness of her Jewishness has been a strong theme in her life. At the start of 1990 this evolved into the Berlin Jewish Culture Association ("Jüdischer Kulturverein Berlin"). Runge was its first chairperson.