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PO Box 1133
Montpelier, VT 05601-1133
802-229-9429
Thursdays, Starting January 26
One Thursday a month starting in January, Beth Jacob Synagogue will host a local Jewish author as part of an all new 2012 Author Series. Author presentations are free to Beth Jacob members with a requested donation of $5 from non-members. Light refreshments will be provided. Each program starts at 6:30 pm and will be held in the Beth Jacob Synagogue sanctuary.
Thursday, January 26, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
UVM Professor of Political Science Jan Feldman presents
Citizenship, Faith & Feminism: Jewish and Muslim Women Reclaim Their Rights
Does God hate women? That, says Jan Feldman, author of a newly published book on the rights of Muslim and Jewish women, is a basic question that must be asked when considering whether a woman can be both religious and a feminist. Religious women in liberal democracies are "dual citizens" because of their contrasting status as members of both a civic community (in which their gender has no impact on their constitutional guarantee of equal rights) and a traditional religious community (which distributes roles and power based on gender). Join political scientist Jan Feldman on January 26 as she explores the feminist ideology of religious women in the United States, Israel and Kuwait.
Other confirmed authors in the 2012 Authors Series include children's book author Leda Schubert, cultural anthropologist and social activist Dan Chodorkoff, former Maine State Poet Laureate Baron Wormser, and dedicated speaker on Holocaust, tolerance, prejudice and discrimination Ruth Hartz.
February 23 - Leda Schubert, The Art of the Picture Book
5:30 - 6:30 pm Children's Story Hour with Leda Schubert plus Borscht and Vegetarian Potluck or $5 contribution
6:30 - 8:00 pm Leda Schubert Presentation
Leda Schubert teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the author of 8 picture books, ranging from Here Comes Darrell, a story based in her home town of Plainfield, to Ballet of the Elephants, a non-fiction picture book about a ballet for 50 elephants, choreographed by George Balanchine to music by Igor Stravinsky. Her most recent book, The Princess of Borscht, features a recognizably Jewish grandmother, her granddaughter, and her son, who doesn't like borscht. Leda does like borscht. She will talk about her experience fulfilling her lifelong dream of writing books for children/grandchildren -- from idea through publication.
Long before Occupy Wall Street captured the nations imagination there were thriving Anarchist movements on New York's Lower East Side. Dan Chodorkoiff's novel, Loisaida, explores several of these movements, ranging from the Yiddish Anarchists of the Late 19th century, through the young radicals of the 1960's, to the squatters of the 70's and 80's. He examines what Ernst Bloch called "The Principle of Hope", and the role that memory and imagination play in radical social change. Chodorkoff, a cultural anthropologist who has worked for many years with social movements based on the Lower East Side, will read from his critically acclaimed novel, and discuss the relationship of the book's themes to their current expression in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
April 12 - Baron Wormser, The Poetry Life
Baron Wormser's presentation "The Poetry Life" will focus, via poems, prose and commentary, on the place of poetry in his own life and in America at large. Wormser writes about a great array of people in myriad situations. The evening will offer the opportunity to hear how poetry at once honors and questions our humanity. As the poet Dennis Nurkse wrote recently about Baron Wormser, "Baron Wormser's incandescent, exacting generous intelligence never allows him the luxury of detachment. Like all real subversion, his poetry hinges on responsibility. If there's irony, it's the irony of reality, of tragedy: the only animal that claims to know itself cannot save itself. Impenitent Notes (Wormser's recent book of poetry) is essential work." Baron Wormser is the author/co-author of twelve full-length books and a poetry chapbook. He is a former poet laureate of Maine who teaches in the Fairfield University MFA Program and directs the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching. Wormser has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
May 10 (tentative) - Ruth Hartz, Your Name is Renee