Jewish Book Month
2009 Jewish Book Month Event
Morning Event
Thursday, November 12 • 9:30am
Good Manners are Contagious
by Dr. Jodi Stoner & Lori Weiner
$5 per person or
$3 with 3 cans of food
Real solutions for raising responsible, resilient and respectful children. Join us for this informative morning discussing good manners and the good that can come from it when it becomes ingrained in your child's mind. The result is intentional acts of respectfulness, kindness and caring that are passed on to others.
BOOK & AUTHOR LUNCHEON!
Thursday, November 19 • 11am
A Gift from the Enemy
by Eric Lamet
$25 Luncheon only
$30 Luncheon and 2 raffle tickets
A Gift from the Enemy --
Childhood Memories in Wartime Italy
Author: Eric Lamet
Five days of upheaval in the otherwise normal life of a seven-year-old boy, Eric, culminate in his family's escaping their home in Vienna to seek refuge in Italy. The Nazis have just occupied Austria.
Eric remains in Italy with his mother, Lotte, while his father goes to Poland to attend to business. The war breaks out in 1939 and the family loses contact. Two years later Mother and son are sent to an internment camp, a small village in southern Italy. Entering Ospedaletto d'Alpinolo creates a shock to both.
Nothing has ever been wwritten about the Fascist Government's treatment of foreign Jews, thus giving this work significant historical importance.
The eighteen hundred villagers live many years behind the times, barefoot, illiterate and influenced by century old traditions and superstitions. More than sixty internees - English, Polish, Czech, and French citizens and Jews, considered enemies of the country, have been relegated here. Even two Italian political enemies join the fold.
Racial laws forbid Eric, now eleven, from attending public school. His indomitable mother arranges for tutoring by one of the internees.
The last news the small family has received from his father was in 1939. The only contact Lotte has with her family is from a labor camp in Germany and in 1942 she learns that her mother and sister are being sent to Poland. It is the last message from those unfortunate people. In those years when the news was bleak for the internees, when German conquests occurred all over Europe, Lotte finds a source of hope, a new love.
Most vivid through the story is the primitive life in the village, mired in old fashioned lifestyles, where families still have more than twenty children and education stops at the fifth grade for most children.
On September 8, 1943, Italy signs an armistice with the Allies and changes its allegiance. Mussolini is imprisoned and the Fascist government is replaced. Life changes overnight in the small village. The German army, surronds the village, and the soldiers, friendly and casual up to the day before, now walk in groups and are armed to the teeth. A German officer requests a list of Jews living in the village.
In this environment, to the horror of his mother, Eric befriends a German sergeant. This ends when the man tells his young friend that he knows Eric is Jewish but he has nothing to fear, for "all Germans are not alike."
Get Involved for Jewish Book Month!
Contact Marcia Engelman, Special Events Director, at 954-792-6700 ext.311, or
e-mail mengelman@sorefjcc.org for additional information. Download your registration form HERE!
