Nextbook: Local Programs

Maya Arad, Alona Kimhi, & Nava Semel New Israeli Writing <IMG SRC="http://www.nextbook.org/images/event.0506.kimhi.jpg" width=80 hspace=5 vspace=0 align=right> In partnership with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs November 14 2005, 6:30 PM Alliance Française de Chicago 54 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, and David Grossman are well known to American readers, but their work represents only a narrow slice of Israeli writing. Maya Arad, Alona Kimhi, and Nava Semel talk about the writers who are reshaping Israeli literature and why so few booksespecially by women writersmake it onto American bookshelves. Arad is a scholar of Semitic linguistics and an award-winning Hebrew author. Born in Ukraine, in 1966, Kimhi settled in Israel in 1972; she is the author of Weeping Susannah. Semel is a journalist, novelist, playwright, and young adult author; she has published two books in the United States, Becoming Gershona and Flying Lessons. Eli Evans Blue and Gray, Red and Blue <IMG SRC="http://www.nextbook.org/images/event.0506.evans.jpg" width=80 hspace=5 vspace=0 align=right> December 12 2005, 7:00 PM Woman’s Club of Evanston 1702 Chicago Avenue, Evanston As the influence of fundamentalist Christians has grown, the experiences of Jews living in the Bible Belt has come to seem relevanteven essential to readers far from Charleston, Montgomery, or Little Rock. In his classic history, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, Eli Evans tells the story of Jewish life in the South through intimate portraits of individuals, families, and communities. He is also the author of Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate and The Lonely Days Were Sundays: Reflections of a Jewish Southerner. Evans talks about growing up in the South and the changing relationship between Jews and Christians in America. Daphne Merkin Brand New Jews <IMG SRC="http://www.nextbook.org/images/event.0506.merkin.jpg" width=80 hspace=5 vspace=0 align=right> January 18 2006, 6:30 PM Alliance Française de Chicago 54 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago Emblazoning their tops and bottoms with "Jewcy," dancing to remixed klezmer, reading Jewish magazines that resemble Vibe more than Commentary or the Forward, many young Jews are seeking to re-brand their identity as hip and sexy. Is this an expression of a new confidence or of a deep anxiety? Can Judaism, with 613 commandments, be free and easy and still be Judaism? Is there substance behind the new style? Is there style? Daphne Merkin braves this new cultural terrain. Merkin writes for The New Yorker and is the author of the essay collection Dreaming of Hitler and the novel Enchantment. Sander Gilman Extreme Makeover: Jews and the Invention of Cosmetic Surgery <IMG SRC="http://www.nextbook.org/images/event.0506.gilman.jpg" width=80 hspace=5 vspace=0 align=right> February 1 2006, 7:00 PM Woman’s Club of Evanston 1702 Chicago Avenue, Evanston What does the nose job have to do with the Dreyfus Affair or Kant's theories of beauty? Sander Gilman considers philosophical and historical questions rarely broached by cosmetic surgeons or their patients. He looks at how new notions of race, beauty, and happiness arose in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how these turned "the Jewish nose" into an obsession for Jews and non-Jews alike. How are ideals of beauty informed by notions of race and ethnicity? How does external appearance relate to emotional well-being? And how has plastic surgery affected debates about Jewish identity? Sander Gilman's many books include The Jew's Body, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul, and Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Douglas Century Barney Ross: Not Without a Fight <IMG SRC="http://www.nextbook.org/images/event.0506.century.jpg" width=80 hspace=5 vspace=0 align=right> March 9 2006, 7:00 PM Martyrs’ (21 and over venue) 3855 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago "The bitterness and hatred inside me made me a much tougher fighter," said legendary boxer Barney Ross. At 13, Chicago's own Ross saw his father murdered, his mother suffer a nervous breakdown, and his three younger siblings sent to an orphanage. Determined to make enough money to reunite the family, he became a petty thief, a gambler, a messenger boy for Al Capone, and a professional boxer. In his new book, Douglas Century tells how Ross went from being the "Jew Kid" from the west side, to winning the lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight titles. He also describes his heroic actions at Guadalcanal, his addiction to morphine, and his covert missions to run guns to Palestine. Douglas Century is the author of Street Kingdom and Hip Hop Babylon. Martha Lavey & Ed Sobel Are We There Yet? Jewish Playwrights and the American Dream <IMG SRC="http://www.nextbook.org/images/event.0506.lavey.jpg" width=80 hspace=5 vspace=0 align=right> May 9 2006, 6:30 PM Alliance Française de Chicago 54 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago "You wait kid, before it's all over we're gonna get a little place out in the country, and I'll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens" muses Willy Loman. From Miller's salesman to to Becky, the widowed mother of three in Sylvia Regan's Morning Star to Louis Ironson in Angels in America, to Richard Greenberg's Darren Lemming in Take Me Out, the creations of Jewish American playwrights are often desperate to arrive. But each time they shake off one sign of differencereligion, ethnicitythey confront anotherclass, gender, sexual orientation. Steppenwolf's Martha Lavey, Artistic Director, and Ed Sobel, Director of New Play Development, discuss Jewish striving in American theater.