The East Meadow Public Library was awarded a book discussion grant by the Yiddish Book Center. The theme is Stories of Exile. Stories of Exile is a reading and discussion program to engage teens and adults in thinking about experiences of displacement, migration, and diaspora. Using Yiddish literature as a portal, the program will feature works in translation that explore narratives which grapple with questions of homelands, journeys, identity, and belonging. Reading groups will compare these works written in Yiddish in the early and mid-20th century to works by contemporary writers from all across the globe.
November 27 at 1:00 p.m. - The Glatstein Chronicles by Jacob Glatstein, Edited by Ruth Wisse, translated by Maier Deshell and Norbert Guterman
Discussion Leader: Donna Rosenblum from LI Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center.
Register online by clicking on this link, or by calling 516-794-2570, option 3.
This seminal American work from the Yiddish literary canon, in a restored English edition, offers the luminous narrative of the author's journey home to his Polish birthplace. In 1934, with World War II on the horizon, Jacob Glatstein (1896-1971) traveled from his home in America to his native Poland to visit his dying mother. One of the foremost Yiddish poets of the day, he used his journey as the basis for two autobiographical novellas, together known as The Glatstein Chronicles, in which he intertwines childhood memories with observations of growing anti-Semitism in Europe.
The discussion will focus mainly on book one, Homeward Bound, of this collection.
The Yiddish Book Center’s “Stories of Exile” Reading Groups for Public Libraries is made possible by a gift from Sharon Karmazin.
