Congregation Beth Ohr in Old Bridge will hold its ninth annual Global Day of Jewish Learning on Sunday, Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. featuring local rabbis engaging in a panel discussion on this year’s theme, “One People,” and will explore the Jewish community’s common legacy and future. The discussion, to be held at the East Brunswick Library, will be moderated by Beth Ohr’s Rabbi Joel Mishkin. Other participating religious leaders are: Rabbi Larry Brandspiegel, East Brunswick Jewish Center; Rabbi Chaim Edelstein, Temple Beth Ahm, Aberdeen; Rabbi Eric Eisenkramer, Temple B’nai Shalom, East Brunswick and Rabbi Nathan Langer, formerly of the Freehold Jewish Center, now retired.
The program, co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation in the Heart of New Jersey, is free to attend but RSVP is required at (732) 257-1523 or congregationbethohr@gmail.com
Israeli tour guide and educator Moshe Gold will give an insider’s perspective on “Post-October 7 Israeli Society: It’s Challenges and Hopes,” on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 6 p.m. at the Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth. During the program, which will include a “light” Israeli dinner, he will focus on the challenges Israelis face and their hopes for a better future. Gold was born in the United States and moved with his family to Israel at the age of one, growing up in the yishuv, or community, of Meitar in the Negev. He now lives in Moshav Beit Zayit, near Jerusalem. He has worked independently and for multiple organizations, including Ramah, as a guide, educator and speaker and has collaborated with families, adults and teenage groups.
Cost is $10. RSVP required at HPCT-CAE.org/Moshe-Gold or go to the website and scan the QR code at hpct-cae.org. For more information, call (732) 545-6482.
Dr. Alex Kor will speak about the book he wrote with Graham Honaker about the incredible lives of his Holocaust survivor parents, Eva Mozes Kor and Mickey Kor, on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 1 p.m. at the Marlboro Jewish Center. The free program is being sponsored by the synagogue and the Center to Combat Antisemitism and Reinforce Multicultural Awareness (CARMA). The book, “A Blessing, Not a Burden,” will be available to purchase at the event.
Both parents overcame the loss of their families to lead lives of hope, healing and forgiveness in rural Indiana, a state with an ignominious history of prejudice. His mother, and her sister, Miriam, were among the infamous twins, subjected to horrible experimentation at Auschwitz by Dr. Josef Mengele. Yet, the Romanian survivor came to forgive her Nazi tormentors and in 2007 worked with state legislators to gain passage of an Indiana law requiring Holocaust education in secondary schools. She also returned to Auschwitz many times, often with educators, and founded the organization CANDLES, (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) in 1984, locating122 other survivors of Mengele in her effort to educate the public about eugenics. Eva died in 2019.
Mickey was a Latvian survivor who was saved by his own mother, who he never saw again, after she pushed him into a group of older boys selected for slave labor as the Riga ghetto was being liquidated. He was liberated in 1945 by American soldiers from the 250th Engineer Combat Army Battalion, and because he was able to speak several languages, was taken on as a translator by the battalion. After the war an officer in the unit sponsored him to move to his hometown of Terre Haute, Ind. He died in 2021.
No pre-registration is required. For information contact synagogue executive director Dara Winston at (732) 536-2300 ext. 101 or
dwinston@mjcnj.com.
Voting rights expert Ari Berman, the author of the book, “Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People―and the Fight to Resist It,” will speak on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 10:30 a.m. at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick for the Dr. Louis and Felice Schrager Memorial Lecture.
The book exposes the long history of the conflict between white supremacy and multiracial democracy that has reached a fever pitch today—while also telling the inspiring story of resistance to these regressive efforts. Those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 , 2021 represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today and a blatant disregard for the will of the majority, but it didn’t begin or end with Donald Trump. Berman shows how through a history of voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift.
Berman is national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. He’s also the author of “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America,” which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, and “Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics.”
Books will be available for purchase at the program. If you would like to purchase the book beforehand, contact the synagogue at (732) 545-6484.