Kirschner was born in New York City to Sala Kirschner, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and Sidney Kirschner, an American GI who brought her home as a war bride.[9][10] Kirschner attended public school in New York City, then earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University at Buffalo and a master's degree from the University of Virginia. She received her doctorate in English literature from Princeton University, where she was a Whiting Fellow in the Humanities.
From 2006-2016, Kirschner served as Dean of Macaulay Honors College, the selective honors college for students at the City University of New York. As Dean, Kirschner opened the William Macaulay Honors College Center on 67th Street in Manhattan, which was the first dedicated space for CUNY students in the honors college.[16] After retiring as dean, Kirschner served as Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and University Professor developing courses in higher education and workforce development at the CUNY Graduate Center.[17]
Kirschner received the Above and Beyond Award (2014) from City and State Magazine,[26]New York Award from New York Magazine (1999),[27]
and as a distinguished alumni of University at Buffalo and Princeton University. In 2023, City & State New York named her to the Manhattan Power 100 list of the borough's most influential political players.[28]
Publications
Books
Kirschner is the author of Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story, the story of her mother's wartime rescue of hundreds of letters sent to her during the five years she spent in Nazi slave Labor camps. The letters include correspondence between Kirschner's mother and Ala Gertner, who was hanged for her role the sonderkommando revolt at Auschwitz.[29] The book has also been published in German as Salas Geheiminis, in Polish, as Listy z Pudełka, in Italian, as Il Dono di Sala, in French, as Le Secret de ma mère, in Czech as Salin Dar, [30] and Chinese (Mandarin). The book was adapted to a play entitled Letters to Sala by Arlene Hutton, which had its New York premiere on October 2, 2015 by and is distributed by Dramatists Play Service.[31]
Her second book, Lady at the OK Corral: the True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp was published by HarperCollins in March 2013. It is a biography of Josephine Marcus Earp, Wyatt Earp's common law wife of nearly 50-years. According to the author, Marcus sparked the world's most famous gunfight, buried her husband in a Jewish cemetery after he died in 1929, and subsequently shaped the legend of Wyatt Earp and the Wild West. In 2013, Kirschner's book was selected as an Editor's Choice by The New York Times Sunday Book Review[32] and Kirschner was honored as best new Western author by True West Magazine.[33]
