Wednesday, March 19, 2025

The Mothership Called Me Home

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It was the thrill of a lifetime to represent 3GNY - Descendants of Holocaust Survivors with a Zaidy's War book talk at the Holocaust Memorial Committee's Purim Brunch in the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center in my old Brooklyn hometown.

What a great, big, attentive, friendly, engaged crowd who gave me full props for doing my Russian research properly. If ever there was a proving ground for the Soviet facts of Zaidy's story, this was certainly it, and I passed the test.

Also present were several notable Brooklyn council- and assembly-members, one of whom chased me down to ask me if I would do talks at political functions around the borough.

Uh, yes! And I'll name him if he comes through for me. 🙂

P.S. The gentleman to my left is Moshe - the Octogenarian DJ - with whom I chatted in Yiddish, and who taught me how to say, "Good afternoon! Thank you for having me." in Russian. He interrupted me to declare, "He learning very fest!" The audience loved it.

Photo Credit: Yana Toyber (who, thankfully did not capture the moment I tripped over the mic stand and nearly went sprawling - which induced a louder gasp than some of the wild details of Zaidy’s story).

Monday, March 10, 2025

I'm Coming Toronto Your Town!

Major milestone coming up:

1) I've delivered two book talks in one day on multiple occasions, but I'm going to break that record by one.

2) I'm delivering my first book talk on foreign soil.

I'm going to kill all these birds with one stone by heading to The Great White North on March 23rd. Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue of Toronto has invited me to be a Talker-in-Residence, of sorts, for the day.

This is the agenda:

10:00 AM: I'm talking about Zaidy's War, my grandfather's WWII memoirs.

11:00 AM: I'm talking about my parody haggadot, namely The Emoji Haggadah, The Festivus Haggadah, The Coronavirus Haggadah, The Shakespeare Haggadah, This Haggadah is The Way: A Star Wars Unofficial Passover Parody, and The Dad Jokes Haggadah.

12:15 PM: I'm conducting a Create-Your-Own-Family-Haggadah workshop with the kiddies, with The Emoji Haggadah as a template for their creativity.

If you're in the area, swing on over! You can sign up here:

https://www.beby.org/event/bookmarch23

https://www.beby.org/event/familymarch23