HBI Conversations is a program that sparks discussion and builds community by bringing authors and filmmakers whose work focuses on Judaism and gender to speak to Conversations groups. Intimate groups of twenty-five to thirty meet in private homes and split their time between author presentations and lively discussion. Books and films are drawn from all genres and span a wide range of themes, from relationships and families to the Holocaust and international Jewish experience.
Groups typically meet three times over the course of a year, and the fee is $180, which includes books or film screenings.
Some selections from this year's groups:
Ten Green Bottles: The True Story off One Family's Journey from War-torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai by Vivian Kaplan: Kaplan movingly retells the story of her mother's journeys. Her physical move from Vienna to Shanghai and eventually Canada mirrors her emotional movement from confidence that Jews could never be persecuted in Austria through the struggles of life in China during the war to the devastation of hearing what became of friends and family at home when the war ends.
Vivian Kaplan will be speaking in Baltimore, Howard County, Bethesda, and Montreal.
Victoria Redel's The Border of Truth is a novel that focuses on Sara, a 41-year-old single professor who is seeking to adopt a child. As she delves into her past, she finds the tale of her father, Itzak, who was among a group of refugees who were prevented from entering the US in 1940 and was sent back to Europe. Itzak writes a series of letters to Eleanor Roosevelt, and the mysteries of his past deepen.
Victoria Redel will be speaking in Baltimore and Howard County.
HBI Conversations is in a pilot phase. We currently have groups in five cities, listed below. To participate in one of these groups, contact the Coordinator!
Baltimore, MD: Debra Weinberg, debslee601@comcast.net
Bethesda, MD: Toba Penny, wer4cents@aol.com
Columbia, MD: Roberta Greenstein, roberta.greenstein@comcast.net
Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens, FL: Rosemarie Lawrence,
R.Lawrence@cjepb.org
Montreal: Jennifer Solomon, Jennifer.Solomon@jplmontreal.org
If you would like to bring HBI Conversations to your area by serving as a group chair or have general questions about the program, please contact Sarah Twichell, the HBI Conversations National Coordinator, at hbi@brandeis.edu.
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