BOOK PROGRAMS

January 10

February 7

February 17 February 21

CONCERTS

January 17

FILMS

January 20

DISCUSSIONS

January 24

JEWS IN ITALY

January 31

February 3

TEACH-IN

February 23

Sunday, January 10, 1:30 P.M.

A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel
(HarperCollins, 2009)

Authors Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh

Winner of The Washington Institute 2009 Book Prize for Nonfiction Books on the Middle East

Based on groundbreaking research, the authors present a suspenseful, moment-by-moment account of the national and global pressures on Truman to make the controversial decision whether America should become the first nation to recognize Israel.

$5, free for members

Join us for a tour of The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service at 12:30 P.M.  Space is limited and pre-registration for tour is required. Call 646.437.4202.

Sunday, January 17, 2 P.M.

The Afro-Semitic Experience presents
The Road that Heals the Splintered Soul

David Chevan, bass; Warren Byrd, piano and keyboards; Alvin Carter, Jr., drums; Baba David Coleman, percussion; Stacy Phillips, violin and dobro; and Will Bartlett, saxophone and clarinet

Celebrate the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with this high-energy concert reflecting both Jewish and African diaspora heritages through the rich musical traditions of Gospel, Klezmer, Nigunim, Spirituals, and Swing.

$15, $12 students/seniors, $10 members

Join us for a tour of Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges at 1 P.M.  Space is limited and pre-registration for tour is required. Call 646.437.4202.

This program was created with support from Chamber Music America’s New Works: Creation and Presentation Program, funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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FILM PROGRAM

Wednesday, January 20, 6:30 P.M.

A Cantor's Tale

(U.S.A., 2005, DVD, 95 minutes)

Post-screening discussion with producer/director Erik Greenberg Anjou; and cantors Jacob Mendelson, Temple Israel Center; Benny Rogosnitzky, Park East Synagogue; and Angela Warnick Buchdahl, Central Synagogue

"With its outlandish stories, obsession with masculine ego, and focus on an absurd, forgotten subculture, A Cantor's Tale is the stuff Ben Stiller movies are made of..." —Village Voice

From Borough Park to Jerusalem, take a nostalgic, humorous, and heartfelt journey exploring the roots of "hazzanut" (Jewish liturgical music). After the screening, be treated to music performed by our guest cantors.

 $10, $7 students/seniors, $5 members

Sunday, January 24, 1:30 p.M.

How to Write Our Parents' Wars

Panel discussion and memoir writing workshop with Judith Greenberg (Cypora’s Echo), Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer (Ghosts of Home), Irene Kacandes (Daddy's War: Greek American Stories), Nancy Kricorian (Zabelle), and Gabriele Schwab (Haunting Legacies); moderated by Nancy K. Miller (Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Parent's Death)

Writers and critics in history and literary studies will discuss the challenges we face in bringing the complicated narratives of the past into the present. Following the 90-minute discussion, audience members can participate in a memoir writing workshop in small groups led by individual panelists. Pre-registration for the 75-minute workshop is required. Please call the box office at 646.437.4202 to sign up for one of the following discussion topics:

How to Do Oral History:  Leo Spitzer

Family Silences, Family Secrets: Irene Kacandes and Gabriele Schwab

The Family Drawer: What can objects and documents tell us about the past? Marianne Hirsch and Nancy K. Miller

Fiction and Truth: Judith Greenberg and Nancy Kricorian

All workshop participants should bring 1-2 pages of writing, a story, an image, or an object they would like to discuss.

$10, $7 students/seniors, free for members

The Primo Levi Center and the Italian Cultural Institute Present
Jews in Italy During the Holocaust

Sunday, January 31, 1:30 P.M.

Mussolini's Camps: The Internment of Jewish Civilians in Fascist Italy

1:30 P.M. – Screening of The Jews from Fossoli Directed by Ruggero Gabbai
(Italy, 2006, DVD, 50 minutes, Italian with English subtitles)

This illuminating documentary exposes the Italian Social Republic’s 1943 deportation of all Jews residing in Italy and the subsequent establishment of a concentration camp in Fossoli.

3 P.M. – Discussion with author Carlo Spartaco Capogreco (The Duce’s Camps) and Doris Schechter, hidden as a child with her family in Italy and proprietor, My Most Favorite Food; moderated by Alessandro Cassin

This panel will examine the unique situations of Jews in Italy during the Holocaust. From 1938 to 1943, civilian internment camps were established to segregate Italian Jews and foreign Jews living in Italy. While there were many cases in which local populations showed great empathy, others did not hesitate to give up their Jewish neighbors to the Italian Fascists or Nazis. 

All programs in this series are free

Sunday, February 7, 1:30 P.M.

Is Diss A System? A Milt Gross Comic Reader (NYU Press, 2009)

With author Ari Y. Kelman interviewed by author Eddy Portnoy

Kelman presents some of the most hilarious work of Milt Gross, the forefather of American Jewish humor. A cartoonist and animator, Gross first found fame in the late 1920s writing comic strips and newspaper columns in the unmistakable accent of Jewish immigrants. His work includes De Night in De Front From Chreesmas and Famous Fimmales Witt Odder Ewents From Heestory.

$5, free for Museum and NYBC members

Co-sponsored by the National Yiddish Book Center

THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED.

NOTE NEW DATE:

Wednesday, February 17, 6:30 P.M.

Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler
(Random House, 2009)

Author Anne Nelson in discussion with
Bonnie Gurewitsch, Museum curator

Red Orchestra tells the compelling story of an intrepid band of German artists, intellectuals, and bureaucrats and their dangerous battle to unveil the brutal secrets of their fascist employers. 

$5, free for members

This program was made possible in part by the German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin (GDW).

Sunday, February 21, 2:30 P.M.

The End of the Jews
(Spiegel and Grau, New York, 2009)

With author Adam Mansbach interviewed by journalist and author Joan Morgan

 “Beautifully portrayed…” --New York Times Book Review

A beautiful, funny, heartbreaking book that manages to take on art, love, identity, class anxiety, being Jewish and wishing you were black. Mansbach’s previous bestselling novel Angry Black White Boy (Crown), a satire about race, whiteness and hip-hop, is taught at more than sixty colleges, universities and high schools.

$5, free for members

Join us for a tour of Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges at 1 P.M.  The exhibition closes on February 21. Space is limited and pre-registration for tour is required. Call 646.437.4202.

Tuesday, February 23, 7 P.M.

A Taste of Limmud NY: Jewish Culture and Learning Teach-In

Participate in an evening of tours, workshops, and discussions designed to encourage discovery and learning for Jews of all backgrounds. Light snacks will be served. Visit www.limmudny.org for details.

$10 minimum donation