A Few More Things to Do

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Help us clean up the library’s records and recover over 100 overdue books. Elul is a perfect time to clear your book conscience.  To simplify the process –  drop books off on my front porch (there will be a labeled container) when you stop at Shomrei to pick up your holiday bag: 204 Park Street (map) just a couple of blocks up the street from Shomrei. 

The Montclair Art Museum opens this weekend with a special day for members on Saturday and open to the general public on Sunday. Days are limited but hours are extended. Check the website for specific safety requirements, hours and other information.

Outside  is a timely short film and commentary based on a story by Israeli writer  Edgar Keret.

Weekly Wednesday evenings at 8:00, America at the Crossroads is a series of conversations on contemporary events. The series, featuring well-known public figures, is sponsored by California non-profit Jews United for Democracy. There is no charge but the organization welcomes tax deductable donations.Past programs are available for viewing.

Start a new tradition and have a Rosh Hashanah seder. This one is short and sweet and should appeal to many contemporary Jews.  

Other appropriate home readings for the holidays can be found on the American Jewish World Service website.

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The Akedah Project is presented by a coalition of the following organizations: jewishLIVE/Judaism Unbound, 929 English, the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, and Israel’s BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change.  It explores the story  of Isaac’s almost sacrifice through multiple lenses and presentations by a multitude of scholars and commentators.

And some BOOKS of interest:

Deep Delta Justice by Matthew Van Meter shows how  perseverance and a good legal mind can change the law in the book subtitled “a Black teen, his lawyer and their groundbreaking battle for cicil rights in the South.” It brings home the outsized Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and humanized some of the heroes of the civil rights movement.

Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories by Blume Lempel is a collection of short stories set in both Europe and the U.S. . Filled with fantasy and stark reality, poetic language and terse prose, these stories translated from Yiddish are often small masterpieces that will make the reader laugh, cry, and shake with anger at man’s inhumanity to man.

9 10fallout-9781982128517_lgFallout by Lesley M.M. Blume is an in-depth and “magesterial account (NYTimes)” of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and the informational coverup that followed which was finally broken by John Hersey in 1946 in a New Yorker piece. The author grew up in  Montclair and attended Montclair Schools. This book is a good tie in to Larry Tye’s Demagogue about Senator Joseph McCarthy. Pair this with the award winning The Bomb by Steve Sheinkin which tells the story of the bomb’s development.

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2 thoughts on “A Few More Things to Do

  1. Thank you, as always, Aileen, for your thoughtful regldctiond, advice, and selections. l’shanah tovah, and stsy safe.

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