Janis Ruth Coulter, a Boston native, lived in Brooklyn, New York. Though raised Episcopalian, she embraced Judaism as a young adult, officially converting in 1996. Janis served as Senior Program Officer at the New York office of Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School. She had arrived in Israel just one day before her death, accompanying a group of American students to Jerusalem to begin their studies.
On July 31, 2002, Janis was among the victims killed in the terror attack at the Frank Sinatra Cafeteria on Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus.
Janis graduated with a degree in History and Judaic Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1991. She later earned her Master’s in Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, spending a year as a visiting graduate student at Hebrew University, where she also worked at the School of Education. In 1999, she moved to New York to work for the Rothberg International School’s Office of Academic Affairs, where she became assistant director, overseeing graduate programs, scholarships, and student recruitment.
A friend remembered her: “Janis was my friend. She endured a lot but always tried to meet life with a smile.”
In her memory, a stretch of East 69th Street in Manhattan, near Hebrew University’s New York office, was renamed Janis Coulter Place.
**The information on this page is part of the “Yizkor” commemoration project by the Ministry of Defense/the ‘La’ad’ website by the National Insurance Institute, in memory of the fallen.
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Janis was my friend. She had endured a lot but she always tried to meet life with a smile.