Prof. Michael Feige, killed in Tel Aviv shooting, recalled as kind, ‘grandfatherly’

Elisheva Goldberg, a graduate of Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, took two courses with Michael Feige, a professor of Israel studies who was killed Wednesday night in the terror attack at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market.

Feige, a sociologist and anthropologist specializing in Israeli society, was a “really nice professor,” says Goldberg.

“He wasn’t one of those stuck-up academics, he was very approachable, very human and personable,” she tells The Times of Israel.

“He was so considerate to me during a difficult time in my life, and he was considerate in hearing what people had to say. He always asked people’s opinions, he was never rude, even when someone asked a stupid question, and he always made sure we understood what he was speaking about.”

As a sociologist who studied collective memory and political myths, Feige never minded venturing off onto tangents he considered worthwhile, says Goldberg, “even if it wasn’t tied to what we were discussing in class.”

She calls him a “very grandfatherly kind of person,” who was warm to his students and “sometimes made funny, fatherly kind of jokes,” she recalls.

Goldberg, who still lives in Beersheba and currently works for the university, notes that Feige’s daughter is getting married soon. He also has a book coming out soon, “Settling in the Hearts: Fundamentalism, Time and Space in the Occupied Territories,” from Wayne State University Press.

— Jessica Steinberg