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Jewish Identity in Literature - Book Series

Past Sessions
Wednesday, 30 November, 2016 29 Cheshvan 5777 - 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM - Yavne Library
Wednesday, 26 October, 2016 24 Tishrei 5777 - 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM - Yavne Library
Wednesday, 21 September, 2016 18 Elul 5776 - 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM - Yavne Library

A three–part series, in which noted journalist and author Suanne Kelman, will lead a group discussion on each of three selected books around the theme of Jewish identity. Participants can sign up for individual sessions or the entire series.

The three books covered in this series include the following:

 

The Color of WaterA Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother

By James McBride

This powerful memoir of the author’s mother  slowly reveals her

secret: The daughter of a rabbi, Ruchel Dwajra Zylska fled her

abusive father to marry a black man in 1942. Despite her poverty

and the chaos of her home, she inspired all 12 of her children to

achieve success in education and in life. But her struggle to create

her own identity ripples into her children’s lives as well, as they

contend with her strangeness and pain.

 

 

My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq 

By Ariel Sabar.

Sabar, an American journalist, is the son of a philologist devoted to

 preserving the Aramaic language of his ancestors. Sabar, hip and

quintessentially Californian, comes to understand and appreciate

his father and his heritage only when he visits the remnants of the

ancient Jewish community in Zakho and recreates his father’s

journey from Iraq to Israel to America. The book won the 2008

National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.

 

Second Person Singular    

By Sayed Kashua

Kashua, who writes in Hebrew and English, is a columnist for

Ha’aretz and the creator of Arab Labor, the first Israeli sitcom to

focus on an Arab family. This novel, his third, deals with two Arab

men, one a prosperous lawyer and the other a faltering social

worker.  The plot develops in twists that few readers will anticipate,

as the two men’s lives slowly intersect. It provides fascinating

insights into Israeli society, both Jewish and Arab. First Person

Singular provides the plot of the second half of the current film Arab Lives. 

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