Books Discussed at Book Talks & Monthly Membership Meetings

A rediscovery. A lost document of theatrical history written more than seven decades ago is now translated for the first time into English -- the autobiography of the great Yiddish actor Jacob Adler. It is, as well, a history of the Yiddish theater -- for which Adler himself was almost single-handedly responsible -- in Russia, England, and the United States.

The stories of Arnold Rothstein,.Felix Frankfurter and Al Jolson in the 1920s, when perceptions of American Jews were evolving, told by an award winning historian.

Vibrations: The Adventures and Musical Times of David Amram
David Amram and Douglas Brinkley

Mr. Amran was the speaker at the 9/17/2006 meeting

Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac
David Amram

The story of Bruce Feiler's 10,000-mile trek from Mount Ararat to Mount Nebo, undertaken for reasons he did not understand at the outset and accompanied by a companion who was very nearly a stranger.

Ronnie Fein was a speaker at the April 2005 meeting of JHSLFC.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Cooking
Ronnie Fein

Ronald Florence was a speaker at the November 2004 meeting of JHSLFC.

Ms. Hakakian was a speaker at the February 2006 meeting of JHSLFC.

for more Stefan Kanfer see below

Betty Lauer was a featured speaker at a Sunday meeting.

Ladies and Gentlemen; The Original Music of the Hebrew Alphabet & Weekend in Mustara
Curt Leviant

Dr. Libo was a speaker at the November 2004 meeting of JHSLFC

Mre. Livingston was the speaker at the October 2006 meeting of JHSLFC

Music CD: Hodu: Jewish Rhythms from Baghdad to India

Book Talk Presenter:
Julian Padowicz

Mr. Padowicz also spoke at the Stamford Historical Society's Founders Day Lecture, October 22, 2006.

Yale Strom talked & performed at the JCC on January 16, 2005.

Adventure and Destiny
Dr. Leon Tec

"Author Simon Wiesenthal recalls his demoralizing life in a concentration camp and his envy of the dead Germans who have sunflowers marking their graves. At the time he assumed his grave would be a mass one, unmarkedand forgotten. Then, one day, a dying Nazi soldier asks Weisenthal for forgiveness..."  from Amazon review.

About Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal Centerc

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Stefan Kanfer is the author of ten books. His nonfiction includes A Journal of the Plague Years, a history of the blacklist in show business; A Summer World, a history of the great Catskills resorts; The Last Empire, a widely praised history of De Beers from its first days in South Africa to its present global dominance (the work has been translated in seven languages and is presently selling on five continents); and Serious Business, a history of animated cartoons in America. His two newest works, published by Knopf, focus on Groucho Marx, the quiet, studious youth who dreamed of becoming a doctor, got pushed into show business y his mother, and became one of the world's most conflicted, and most famous, comedians and cultural icons. The first book is a biography: Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx; the accompanying volume is an anthology: Monkey Business: The Lives and Legends of The Marx Brothers of writings by and for the comedian. Kanfer's novel, The Eighth Sin, about gypsies during World War II, was a selection of the Book of the Month Club and led to an appointment on the President's Commission on the Holocaust. Kanfer is the only journalist ever to serve on that Commission. Another book, Fear Itself, about the last days of the Roosevelt administration, is used as a textbook at Boston University.

Mr. Kanfer was a speaker at a Sunday meeting of the JHSLFC.

Ruth Gay is also the author of
The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait
Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America

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