Calendar

Oct
5
Fri
Brown Bag Lunch: Eli’s Town @ Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
Oct 5 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Join photographer Elliot Burg as we discusses his photographs on view in the East Gallery (starting Oct 4). In early 2017, photographer Elliot Burg decided to seek out and capture images of the place in Eastern Europe where his Jewish grandfather and namesake Eli (pronounced “Ellie”) had come from. The exhibition is the story of that journey.

OJMCHE kicks off a series of informal lunchtime conversations with scholars, museum professionals, historians, and others. Bring a lunch or buy a brown bag lunch in Lefty’s Cafe and join us in the museum’s auditorium for a lively give and take as we share and explore ideas, experience, and expertise.

Nov
8
Thu
Brown Bag Lunch Discussion with Rosalyn Kliot @ Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
Nov 8 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

This month featuring Speaker’s Bureau member Rosalyn Kliot, who will share her story, from origins in Vilna and Lodz, to life in Oregon today. This event is part of the 2018 Portland Jewish Book Month series on David Fishman’s The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis.

The OJMCHE series of informal lunchtime conversations. Bring a lunch or buy a brown bag lunch in Lefty’s Cafe and join us in the museum’s auditorium for a lively give and take as we share and explore ideas, experience, and expertise.

Dec
4
Tue
Brown Bag Lunch: Ghetto Gardens @ Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
Dec 4 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

The OJMCHE series of informal lunchtime conversations. Bring a lunch or buy a brown bag lunch in Lefty’s Cafe and join us in the museum’s auditorium for a lively give and take as we share and explore ideas, experience, and expertise.

Join Kenneth Helphand, Philip H. Knight Professor of Landscape Architecture Emeritus University of Oregon, for a talk on Ghetto Gardens in conjunction with our current exhibition. The Last Journey of the Jews of Lodz offers an extraordinary rare glimpse of life inside the Lodz Ghetto through the lens of Polish Jewish photojournalist Henryk Ross.

It seems improbable, but gardens were made in the ghettos of Lodz, Warsaw, Kovno and more. Based on research in Poland, Israel and the US this illustrated talk speaks about the creation and meaning of these gardens based on the first person accounts of their creators and witnesses. The talk is based on material in Helphand’s award winning book Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime. The OJMCHE Brown Bag lunch is a series of informal lunchtime conversations. Bring a lunch or buy a brown bag lunch in Lefty’s Cafe and join us in the museum’s auditorium for a lively give and take as we share and explore ideas, experience, and expertise.

 

Jan
9
Wed
Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Jan 9 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground

Join us on the second Wednesdays of every month from September to June for Chai Baby Indoor Playground, with kosher snacks, storytelling, friends and fun!

For parents/caregivers and their children up to five years old.

Please mark your calendar for our 2019 dates, held on the second Wednesdays each month:
January 9
February 13
March 13
April 10
May 8
June 12

Free and open to the community.

In partnership with PJ Library, Chai Baby, and Portland Jewish Academy.

Jan
27
Sun
Portland Jewish Book Celebration – Author Talk @ Portland State University
Jan 27 @ 1:00 pm

Portland Jewish Book Celebration – Author Talk: The Book Smugglers by David Fishman

Portland State University, Browsing Lounge (Room 238) Smith Memorial Student Union, 1825 SW Broadway.

Join author, David Fishman, as he brings a gripping and compelling book to life with his recounting of how he came to learn about this story, illustrated by many photographs. Free and open to the community.

This event is sponsored by Congregation Beth Israel, Mittleman Jewish Community Center, Portland State University’s Judaic Studies Program, and Congregation Shaarie Torah.

Feb
13
Wed
Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Feb 13 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground

Join us on the second Wednesdays of every month from September to June for Chai Baby Indoor Playground, with kosher snacks, storytelling, friends and fun!

For parents/caregivers and their children up to five years old.

Please mark your calendar for our 2019 dates, held on the second Wednesdays each month:
January 9
February 13
March 13
April 10
May 8
June 12

Free and open to the community.

In partnership with PJ Library, Chai Baby, and Portland Jewish Academy.

Mar
13
Wed
Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Mar 13 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground

Join us on the second Wednesdays of every month from September to June for Chai Baby Indoor Playground, with kosher snacks, storytelling, friends and fun!

For parents/caregivers and their children up to five years old.

Please mark your calendar for our 2019 dates, held on the second Wednesdays each month:
January 9
February 13
March 13
April 10
May 8
June 12

Free and open to the community.

In partnership with PJ Library, Chai Baby, and Portland Jewish Academy.

MJCC Author Series – Special Event with Mary Morris @ OSU Foundation
Mar 13 @ 4:00 pm
Author Mary Morris will read from her latest book, Gateway to the Moon, on Wednesday, March 13 at the OSU Foundation in Corvallis.

Her novel alternates between late medieval Spain and Portugal during the traumatic time of the Inquisition, and a very small town in New Mexico in 1992. The modern New Mexican characters are Catholics with peculiar habits. Nobody in town eats pork but they don’t know why. It is likely they are the descendants of conversos, Jews who converted during the Spanish Inquisition. The story weaves a connecting thread from the Iberian Peninsula to Mexico City and then on to the original settlers who moved into what is now the American Southwest. Five hundred years later, a young amateur astronomer wonders about the secret of the town he grew up in: Entrada de la Luna, or Gateway to the Moon.

Morris’ previous work, The Jazz Palace, won the Anisfeld-Wolf Book Award for important contributions to the understanding of racism in 2016. She also writes short stories and travel memoirs. Her many novels and story collections have been translated into six languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

Doors open at 4:00 PM to meet and greet the author. A one-hour author reading and discussion will follow beginning at 4:30 PM. Light refreshments will be served. Admission is free.

Co-sponsored by the Beit Am Jewish Community and the MJCC. Grassroots Bookstore will be there with copies of the paperback edition of Gateway to the Moon for sale and author signing.

Apr
10
Wed
Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Apr 10 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground

Join us on the second Wednesdays of every month from September to June for Chai Baby Indoor Playground, with kosher snacks, storytelling, friends and fun!

For parents/caregivers and their children up to five years old.

Please mark your calendar for our 2019 dates, held on the second Wednesdays each month:
January 9
February 13
March 13
April 10
May 8
June 12

Free and open to the community.

In partnership with PJ Library, Chai Baby, and Portland Jewish Academy.

Apr
19
Fri
Art Gallery Exhibit: The Passover Series @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Apr 19 – Apr 28 all-day

Art Gallery Exhibit: The Passover Series

Shlomo Katz, Polish/Israeli, 1937 – 1992
Born in Lodz, Poland, Shlomo Katz immigrated to Palestine when he was eight years old in 1945. Katz developed an original technique of oil painting on a gilded metal surface. The result recalls medieval icons on the one hand, and oriental miniatures on the other. These ancient resources combine to form a totally modern image with a light humorous touch and a noble character. It took a lot of experimentation to translate these images to the graphic art form. The metallic inks of the golden tones and the importance of absolute registration presented just a part of the challenge, but the Katz serigraphs became the ultimate in modern printmaking.
Exhibit on display April 19 – 28, MJCC Lobby