Architecture of Jewish Culture as reflected in Memorials & Museums
2021-05-03 10:00 - 11:30 (America/New_York)
Architecture of Jewish Culture as reflected in Memorials & Museums with Bruce Levy

Shem Guibbory – Violinist
2021-05-10 10:00 - 11:30
Shem Guibbory – Violinist.

An Archaeologist’s View of European Mummies
2021-05-24 10:00 - 11:30
Come learn about Europe’s mummies from 4000 B.C. to medieval times and what they reveal about past lifeways with Eugene Boesch.

LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO FREEDOM with author Emil Draitser
2021-06-07 10:00 - 11:30
In his autobiographical trilogy, lively, evocative, and rich with humor, Hunter College Russian professor Emil Draitser describes his life as a Jew in the Soviet Union. Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin opens with the author’s startling discovery: many years after making his way to America from Odessa in Soviet Ukraine, every time he uttered the remark “Jewish”—even in a casual conversation—he lowered his voice.
This behavior was a natural by-product, he realized, of growing up in the anti-Semitic, post-Holocaust, Soviet Union when “Shush!” was the most frequent word he heard from his parents trying to keep a low profile. The compelling memoir provides a unique account of mid-twentieth-century existence in Russia as the young Draitser struggles to reconcile the harsh values of Soviet society with the values of his working-class Jewish family.
In the Jaws of the Crocodile covers Emil’s adult years in the Soviet Union, focusing on his work for Krokodil, a major satirical publication, which was allowed “to ridicule things the state apparatus has proved worthy of criticism.” The book explores what it means to be a satirist and a Jew in a country lacking freedom of expression. His experience provides a window into the lives of a generation of artists who could poke fun and make readers laugh, as long as they toed a narrow, state-approved line.
Farewell, Mama Odessa is devoted to the travails of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union and adjustment to life in a different culture. Drawing on the rich tradition of Odessan humor, this autobiographical novel explores the most powerful innate motivation that drives many people to leave the country they were born and raised, about their hopes and dreams, their aspirations to achieve their full human potential.
If you’d like to purchase the book, the publisher is offering a 30% to Renard participants through the month of June with promo code: RENARD. Click here to purchase his book.
Emil also said the following, “As to the third title of the trilogy, Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin, by the time of my talk, the Amazon plans to offer their print-on-demand option with much reduced price.”

In Memory: An Encore Video Airing of Jewish image in American Film” with Arthur Aldrich
2021-06-14 10:00 - 11:30
Please note there will be no in-person event for this tribute. In We are so sad to have to announce that Arthur R. Aldrich, frequent Renard Series lecturer and a longtime beloved member of our community has passed away on Monday, April 12. Arthur was known for his riveting talks on Jewish Image in American Film over many eras and genres. His last lecture with us was on March 15. He will be missed by our community and we send our deepest condolences to his family. To read his obituary, please click here.
We are inviting the community to watch his last lecture. His lecture from March 15 will be posted here soon. Check back to this space.
Arthur Aldrich is a media historian and founder, editor, and publisher of “Our Town” newspaper. In the 1950s, he worked in radio and was stage manager of an off-Broadway theater and technical director of the Folksbiene Theater on the Lower East Side. He was an adjunct professor at Rockland Community College and taught more than 60 Elderhostel and adult education courses. He teaches at the Learning Collaborative in Rockland County.

How Music Works: Baroque music and beyond with Barry Weisenfeld
2021-06-21 10:00 - 11:30
“How Music Works: Baroque music and beyond”—Barry will discuss jazz from its origins in the Deep South during slavery and its migration north and evolution through various styles including big band and bebop and cool jazz.

Salt on a Robin's Tail: An Unlikely Jewish Journey Through Childhood, Forgiveness, and Hope (Book reading & Discussion with author Andrea Kott))
2021-09-20 10:00 - 11:00
The daughter of a single mother whose depression and drinking pitched them into poverty, her stormy life looked nothing like that of the Jewish kids she knew: It defied every stereotype she associated with being Jewish—having an intact family and material wealth, and becoming a bat mitzvah.
Alienated and ashamed, Kott felt ineligible to be Jewish, yet hungered for connection to the tradition and to God. It took a near-fatal accident, her mother’s death, marriage and motherhood, and losing a beloved brother for her to find her Jewish home.
Salt on a Robin’s Tail: An Unlikely Jewish Journey Through Childhood, Forgiveness, and Hope is a true story of love and loss, struggle and survival, despair and possibility. It shatters stereotypes and inspires reconciliation with the painful past. Robin will bring copies of her book for purchase for $16.

Germany’s Two Summer Olympics On The Global Stage
2021-10-04 10:00 - 11:30
Glickman, Stoller, Bergman, Spitz and Cosell. Germany’s Two Summer Olympics On The Global Stage
With award-winning journalist Evan Weiner
There are a few people in Germany who want to see Berlin bid for the 2036 Summer Olympics to mark the 100th anniversary of the Hitler-Nazi Games. The proponents think it could be a teachable time for the word in how propaganda was used to promote the Games and the Nazi regime. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin was described as the finest ever by Avery Brundage who was involved with the Olympics first as an athlete and then the President of the International Olympic Committee. Germany has hosted two Summer Olympics in 1936 and 1972. There was a stain on both athletic competitions.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics was where Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were denied an opportunity to run and Gretel Bergman was not allowed on the German Olympic team because they were Jewish It is also the story of how some Americans wanted to boycott the Games so it would seems they were not going to legitimize the Nazi regime. It is the story of how an American American athlete Jesse Owners ruined Hitler’s coming-out party. In 1972, the Black September attack. Mark Spitz won his gold medals at Munich and was considered a high-value target as the terrorist attack in the Olympics Village was unfolding. Spitz was whisked out. The International Olympic Committee did not acknowledge the tragedy until 2016.
About Evan Weiner
Evan Weiner Bio: is an award-winning journalist and recognized global expert of the “Politics of Sports Business”. He has a daily video podcast called The Politics of Sports Business. In the United States, he has been a radio commentator, TV pundit on MSNBC, and ABC. He is also an author of 11 books and is a frequent college speaker. He has been a regular on BBC radio as well as Talk Sport London and has been quoted in Bolivian and Australian newspapers. From 1988 until 1992, Evan was a member of the Minnesota North Stars radio broadcast team. In 2007, Evan was selected by the United States Department of State to speak at Texas A & M -George Bush Presidential Library to explain how the American government partners with sports addressing 16 hand selected foreign nationals. He won the 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award from the United States Sports Academy. In 2015, Evan was featured on the documentary, “The Sons of Ben” about the economic fall of Chester, Pennsylvania and how the city thought a soccer team would be a key to economic revival.

Creative Aging Workshop with Barbara Stern
2021-10-18 10:00 - 11:00
A workshop associated with the Partnership Innovation for Older Adults Program. Here is an opportunity to explore new options in your life. Learn about supports that are available in Westchester so you can enjoy aging.
Click here for Barbara’s bio.

The Mound Builders of the Eastern United States
2021-11-01 10:00 - 11:30
The Mound Builders of the Eastern United States
with Eugene Boesch
Native American cultures in the Midwestern United States developed elaborate ritual and settlement systems increasingly center on the construction of earthen burial mounds. Over almost two millennia this ritual activity gradually became more complex incorporating not only sacred or religious meaning but economic aspects including the rise of craft specials and extensive region-wide trading networks. What began during the Late Archaic period (3,000 years ago) as small mound sites associated with small hamlets and low populations climaxed with Mississippian culture a thousand years ago into large urban centers with hundreds of mounds multiple stories high that had diverse functions and served scores of thousands of people. Soon after the climax, the entire Mississippian system including mound construction collapse leaving large parts of formerly heavily populated areas almost entirely devoid of people.
Eugene Boesch has undertaken archaeological investigations in the Hudson Valley area for over 30 years. He received a Ph.D. and other graduate degrees from New York University. Dr. Boesch’s work has primarily focused on Pre-Contact period cultures and adaptations in the Eastern Woodlands of North America and on early Euro-American settlement in the Hudson Valley region. He also has worked in Israel, California, and throughout the mid-western United States.

Holocaust Education with Shelley Greenspan
2021-11-08 10:00 - 11:00
Shelly is a member of the Shames JCC and a speaker with the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center in White Plains. “As a daughter of 2 survivors, I tell my parents’ stories from a second-generation perspective. My goal is to increase awareness of the Holocaust and its lessons- to fight antisemitism and bigotry against all marginalized people”

Separation of Church and State with Larry Hine
2021-11-15 10:00 - 11:00
Join us and JCC Member, member of the Old Guard of Westchester, and member of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State to discuss and learn more about the recent efforts to erode the Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state.

American Myths and Stories: A response to Immigration with Laura Chmieleski
2021-11-22 10:00 - 11:00
Dr. Laura M. Chmielewski is an Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History and Museum Studies programs at the State University of New York at Purchase, where she teaches early American, Atlantic World, and public history. She received her Ph.D. from City University of New York. Laura is the author of The Spice of Popery: Converging Christianities on an Early American Frontier (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), The Atlantic Experience: People, Places, Ideas (with Catherine M. Armstrong: Palgrave McMillan, 2014), and Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet: Exploration, Encounter, and the French New World (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2017), as well as several book chapters and anthologized essays. She was a Historian-in-Residence at History Hudson Valley, a consortium of historic properties, and part of the team that created the award-winning, National Endowment for the Humanities-funded “People Not Property: Slavery in the North” web resource.

Her current scholarly project is a study of the intersections of early American religion and maritime commerce, an exploration of Colonial Williamsburg’s rhetorical uses, and a social history of Catholic people in colonial America. Laura’s presentation today focuses on the Colonial Revival movement of the late 19th – early 20th centuries and the ways its creators sought to recast – and in some cases rewrite completely – the nation’s colonial past. New interpretations of its buildings and artifacts were designed with the special goal of educating immigrants from eastern and southern Europe on what it meant to be an American. This was also a consumer movement meant to create new “markets” in historical materials, and its evidence can be seen in multiple aspects of American life ranging from furniture and home design to travel and theatrical experiences!

Cemeteries of Westchester with Patrick Raftery
2021-11-29 10:00 - 11:00
Patrick Raftery, WCHS Librarian, is considered one of the leading authorities on the The Cemeteries of Westchester County and the Bronx, and has authored 6 volumes on the subject. In this 60-minute illustrated slideshow he describes the different types of burial grounds, tombstones and funeral customs, while detailing some of Westchester’s many and fascinating “final resting places.” 50 minutes.

Music of the 50s Part I with David Cheney
2021-12-06 10:00 - 11:00
Music of the 50s was in some ways more revolutionary than 60s music in that it blew away centuries of accumulated racial and social proprieties in America and around the world. US pop charts in the early 50s were dominated by remnants of 40s big band era, with simple and melodic ballads by such vocalists as Patti Page and Frank Sinatra. But everything changed in 1955 with the release of Rock Around the Clock. The new R&R, the birthright of the baby boomers, united black and white teens in a common culture and softened their prejudices–while dividing teens from their parents, the mass media, and even the govt. Join us as trace the evolution of 50s music in three sessions (early, mid, and late 50s) and share memories of a seemingly simpler and happier time.

Music of the 50s Part II with David Cheney
2021-12-13 10:00 - 11:00

Escaping Nazis and the Taliban: We Are All Refugees
2022-01-03 10:00 - 11:00
Join us for a special program on the Afghan refugee crisis, featuring Holly Rosen Fink, President and Co-Founder of Westchester Jewish Coalition for Immigration (WJCI), Manny Lindenbaum, Holocaust survivor and former refugee; and Sameem and Fari Samyousuf, two Afghan refugees who served for the American military and came to America on Special Immigrant Visas.
Find out more about their lives and their work and learn how you can help improve the lives of refugees within our own borders.
Holly Rosen Fink is President and co-founder of the Westchester Jewish Coalition for Immigration. She is a psychotherapist and lives in Larchmont with her family.
Fariha Taaj is from Afghanistan and came to the United States through SIV program in 2020. Currently working at the White Plains Hospital.
Sameem Yousufzada is from Afghanistan and came to the United States through SIV program in 2020. Currently working at the White Plains Hospital.
Manny Lindenbaum survived the Holocaust and was on the Kindertranport. HiIAS resettled him in America.
This event costs $5 to attend in-person and free on Zoom.

Special MLK Renard: The Book of Esther in Art: Race, Religion and Resistance
2022-01-10 10:00 - 11:00
In anticipation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, this slide lecture exams the various images inspired by the Book of Esther in terms of racial difference, religious doctrine, and activism in Jewish and Christian art, from Dura Europos Synagogue (c. 244 C.E.) to contemporary works. Beth S. Gersh-Nešić, Ph.D. is an art historian and the director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts education service. She specializes in 19th century, modern and contemporary art. Currently, she teaches art history at Mercy College. Her most recent publication is Pablo Picasso and André Salmon: The Painter, the Poet and the Portraits (Za Mir Press, 2019¬). Beth is a staff writer for Bonjour Paris, an online magazine.

Nature As a Sanctuary: Seeking Refuge in the Pandemic
2022-01-24 10:00 - 11:00
Pamela-Kolber Zicca will share the pathway of healing through her stories and photography displayed in her book, Nature As a Sanctuary: Seeking Refuge in the Pandemic. Her little gem of a book is a reminder that life is all around us if we only know how to look. Pam is a passionate lover of nature, a photographer, and a swim and aqua aerobics instructor. In addition to her job as a swim instructor, the pandemic allowed Pam to explore her love of both nature and photography. For her, nature was a true sanctuary during the pandemic giving her peace, inspiration and hope when she was furloughed from work in March of 2020. Her experience of nature as a sanctuary further inspired her to create a facebook group Nature Through the Senses on April 23, 2020.
People from all over the area post their beautiful nature images and have become part of a community that stays connected through love of nature and photography. Pamela Kolber-Zicca is a proud sister, aunt, wife and mother living minutes away from the Hudson River where she can be found very early in the morning , camera in hand, photographing nature.

Meet the Town of Greenburgh Clerk Judith Beville and Get Involved in Your Community!
2022-01-31 10:00 - 11:00
Civic Engagement – Greenburgh Town Clerk Judith Beville will discuss the various boards and committees through which residents may become engaged in local government and the Greenburgh Town Hall Summer Internship Program.

Millionaire’s Row on the Palisades: A Glimpse of the Gilded Edge
2022-02-07 10:00 - 11:00
Artists, captains of industry, showmen — all were among the men and women who, from the time of the Civil War through the Great Depression, had unique and often lavish homes built upon the precipices of the New Jersey Palisades. Using newly discovered letters and diaries they have transcribed from the Miles family, historical interpreter Eric Nelsen will bring the story of the grand estates — and the families and servants who lived at them — into vibrant focus. Eric Nelsen was hired as a seasonal employee at the Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey in 1992. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Montclair State University in 1997, and the next year became a full-time historical interpreter at the park. He oversees the park’s historic Kearney House, where he’s helped to develop a unique “living history” program based on the house’s role as a nineteenth-century Hudson River tavern and homestead. In the office, he supervises park publications, including the njpalisades.org website, brochures, and interpretive signs. On days off, Eric enjoys being outdoors, getting into or onto the water, cycling, and time travel.

I Love Lucy: How Lucille Ball Became The Most Powerful Businesswoman in Hollywood with Evan Weiner
2022-02-14 10:00 - 11:00
Lucille Ball should never have been a Hollywood studio mogul. She was told she didn’t have it to be an actress, she ended up proving herself in a Three Stooges short. She was a B movie star who married Desi Arnaz and nearly divorced. Her movie career was done by she was 35. She went into radio, had some success and was offered a chance at TV. There were more obstacles and the Lucy show nearly never got on the air. There was a communist scare, the divorce all of which led her to a starring role. The most powerful businesswoman in Hollywood.
Evan is a speaker, author, with a radio and TV background. He has about 25 topics and has spoken globally. In 2007, the Department of State sent him to talk to foreign nationals at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas to speak about the politics of sports business in America. Evan Weiner started his journalism career at the age of 15 by hosting a Spring Valley High School talk show on WRKL Radio, Mount Ivy, N.Y. in 1971. Read more about Evan.

Telling A Different Story: How An Attorney Found Her Voice As A Novelist
2022-02-28 10:00 - 11:30
Telling A Different Story: How An Attorney Found Her Voice As A Novelist. For over twenty-five years, Reyna Marder Gentin practiced law, representing children and domestic violence victims in the Family Court and, for most of her career, representing indigent defendants appealing their criminal convictions. In this presentation, Reyna will discuss how she found her passion as a novelist, transforming her knowledge of the law into writing fiction with a legal bent. Reyna will discuss the inspiration for her three published books and their themes, as well as the writing process, creating a community. and what she’s learned about the publishing and promoting of books along the way.
Reyna has studied at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, and her work has been published widely online and in print. Her debut novel, UNREASONABLE DOUBTS, was named a finalist for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award in 2019. Her first middle grade novel, MY NAME IS LAYLA, came out in January, 2021, and School Library Journal noted that “Layla’s struggles at school and home are authentically depicted, and readers who face their own challenges will relate.” Layla won the 2021 gold medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Awards in pre-teen fiction. Reyna’s latest novel, BOTH ARE TRUE, was published in October, 2021. Nicola Krauss, co-author of THE NANNY DIARIES, called BOTH ARE TRUE a “moving novel that examines what it means to start over–with surprising consequences.” Reyna lives with her family in Scarsdale, New York.

Leading Women of Westchester, of Stage, Film, and Television with Barbara Davis
2022-03-07 10:00 - 11:30
Beginning with the silent movie stars of the Thanhouser Films Company in New Rochelle (1909 – 1918) and D. W, Griffith’s studios in Mamaroneck (1919- 1924), Westchester has been home to some of America’s finest actresses in film, stage and television. In this digital slide presentation, the lives and careers of many of these women and the allure of our Westchester communities, will be covered. You will be amazed at the number of stars who have made Westchester their home. (60 -90 minutes)

Archaeology and the American Revolution in the Mid and Lower Hudson Valley with Eugene Boesch
2022-03-14 10:00 - 11:30
Well-known and little-known Revolutionary War sites Historic sites in the Lower and Mid Hudson Valley and their importance to our Revolutionary heritage will be discussed including the Battle of White Plains and the Battle of Pelham, fights that saved the Revolution.

Gross National Happiness: A New Measure for Countries with David Cheney
2022-03-21 10:00 - 11:30
Bhutan is known for using an unconventional measure of development since 1972: Gross National Happiness (GNH). Rather than using traditionally narrow economic criteria, Bhutan assesses its well-being on the basis of sustainable and equitable socio-economic development, environmental protection, promotion of culture, and good governance. Bhutan’s use of the GNH principles helped mobilize its whole population to avoid even a single COVID-19 death in 2020. Its positive experience offers lessons for other countries and spawned the World Population Review’s Happiness Report in 2002, which assesses the level of happiness in 149 countries.

Art Lecture with Suzanne Altman
2022-03-28 10:00 - 11:30
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is showing an exhibit of American Artist Winslow Homer’s iconic work in oil and watercolors. Renowned for his powerful paintings of American life and scenery, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) remains a beloved and consequential figure whose art continues to appeal to broad audiences. The centerpiece of the exhibition is Homer’s iconic The Gulf Stream, a painting that reveals his lifelong engagement with charged subjects of race, politics, nature, and the environment. Featuring approximately 90 oils and watercolors, Crosscurrents represents the largest critical overview of Homer’s art and life in more than a quarter of a century. Suzanne will give us a lecture on the life and work of Homer that pairs with this exhibit.
Suzanne Altman is an art educator and art historian who has presented art and art history programs throughout Rockland, Bergen and Westchester counties, for both adult and teenage audiences. She is also a painter who works out of her studio and art school in Ossining, NY and exhibits frequently.

The Jewish Roots of Flamenco with Anna de la Paz
2022-04-04 10:00 - 11:30
Flamenco is an art form that arose in Spain, influenced by various populations passing through or living in the southern region of Andalusia. Beginning in the third century BC, Gypsies, Sephardic Jews, Christians, and Moors all contributed to Andalusian culture. This presentation will discuss flamenco and its Jewish connection. Anna de la Paz is a Spanish dance artist specializing in classical and folkloric Spanish dances. After living in Spain and studying with such great master teachers as Mariemma and Pedro Azorín, she moved to New York City in 1999 and began working with Gabriela Granados and American Bolero Dance Company. As a freelance artist, she has performed throughout the New York area at various venues including Carnegie Hall. Anna de la Paz works in collaboration with mezzo-soprano Anna Tonna on many productions including, “Music and Dance in the times of the Duchess of Alba (1762-1802)”, created for the Hispanic Society of America in New York City.

She is the creator and producer of her own shows, which include Alegría Española, Migración and Memorias, and was on the creative team for Making Music Dance, a cross-fusion of flamenco, tap and world music. She was co-director of Walk to the Beat, an annual improvisational music and dance festival in Nyack, NY. In 2017, Ms. de la Paz was invited to perform in the Canary Islands, Spain at the Festival Atlántico in Gran Canaria. Anna de la Paz has been invited as a lecturer on Spanish dance at area colleges, universities and symposia, including the Foundation for Iberian Music’s international conferences on Enrique Granados in New York City and the “Transatlantic Malagueñas and Zapateados in Music Song and Dance” at University of California, Riverside. In 2018, Anna de la Paz co-founded with Anna Tonna, Hispanic Culture Arts, an arts education organization that brings the classical Spanish arts to the New York City schools. Current clients include PS 8 in Upper Manhattan, the New York School for the Deaf and the Hispanic Society Museum and Library. Ms. de la Paz currently lives in Nyack, NY with her husband and three children, where she continues to teach, produce and perform.

End of Life Details Presentation and Discussion: The Discussion Everyone Needs But Often Avoids Until Too Late with Glenn Eisen
2022-04-11 10:00 - 11:30
Unnecessary grief and expenses are not unusual when some of life’s most important decisions are overlooked or past decisions are not reviewed, updated and addressed. This presentation discusses the full range of issues about end of life issues. It is about living wills/advanced directives, estate plans, last wills and testaments and most of the other issues that might be important to consider. Changes in laws, investments and family situations, along with designated decision makers, funeral venues and disposal of personal assets, are all issues that need to be at least reviewed, discussed and possibly resolved to avoid unnecessary stress and disputes between family members, business associates, healthcare providers and government agencies.

The Disappeared of Guatemala
2022-04-25 10:00 - 11:30
“Guatemala has the dubious distinction of inventing the political condition of “disappearance” in late 20th century Latin America. In Guatemala’s long history of repressing its own citizenry, forced disappearance is rooted in the 1954 US-backed overthrow of democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz and was used throughout the military dictatorships that followed. Driven by a Cold War ideology that conflated group identity with real or imagined political beliefs, three decades of successive military regimes expanded their repressive practices to include massive forced disappearances leading to a deliberate campaign of extermination of ladino (non-Maya) political activists and ultimately genocide of the Maya. This lecture traces state deployment of forced disappearance of opposition leaders in Guatemala from the 1966 mass disappearance of members of the Guatemalan Workers Party to the 1980 mass disappearance of union leaders in order to understand the systematic use of forced disappearance by a state so fragile that it disappeared children in the 1980s. Specifically, I consider the case of Dr. Marvyn Perez who was forcibly disappeared and tortured by Guatemalan security forces when he was 14. More than 30 years later, he continues to seek justice for himself and others who did not survive.
Victoria Sanford is Professor of Anthropology and Founding Director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College. She is a member of the Anthropology Doctoral Faculty at the Graduate Center and an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, City University of New York. She holds a doctorate in Anthropology from Stanford University where she studied International Human Rights Law and Immigration Law at Stanford Law School. She was a Bunting Peace Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard University.
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