JGSGB-Notices Mailing List: Special JGSGB Program This Sunday Evening

[JGSGB Notices List (jgsgb-notices]

On Sunday, December 13, the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, together with Hebrew College, will co-sponsor the following program of interest to family historians:

Elisa New discusses her recently published memoir Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore, A Memoir in Five Generations

Sunday, December 13,  7:30-9:00 p.m.
Berenson Hall at Hebrew College

The program is free and open to the public but seating is limited and advance registration is recommended (click here or go to tinyurl.com/y9se5ct). For more information, contact Renee Tepper at rtepper [at] hebrewcollege.edu or 617-559-8622.

Abstract

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she traveled from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust.

Deeply ambitious in its narrative sweep, Jacob's Cane (Basic Books, September 2009) captures the rich texture of life on several continents as New's family searches to establish itself in the tobacco trade. A fascinating history of one family's story of progress, innovation, and struggle, Jacob's Cane will change the way we think about the Jewish American experience.

Explore the art of the memoir and one woman's journey to discover her family's roots in this intriguing public conversation between Elisa New and David Starr.

Biography

Elisa New is Professor of English at Harvard University, specializing in American poetry and literature, and Jewish literature. Her other publications include The Line's Eye: Poetic Experience, American Sight (1999) and The Regenerate Lyric: Theology and Innovation in American Poetry (1993). She earned her bachelor's at Brandeis University and her master's and doctorate from Columbia University.