Calendar

Aug
24
Fri
Shabbat in Wilshire Park @ Wilshire Park
Aug 24 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

This summer, P’nai Or is taking it outside! Please join us at 6 pm on Friday, Aug 24 at Wilshire Park (NE 33rd & Skidmore) picnic area for a very joyful, very musical Kabbalat Shabbat with Bruce Morris and friends. We’ll start with a bring-your-own-picnic at 6 pm, then the service will start around 6:30. We will also offer our Community Food Program distribution prior to the service. See you there!

Sep
20
Thu
“Why commit suicide? After all, ‘Everything he hated was here!’: Philip Roth and Kitaj on Death, Sex, and Love” Roger Porter lectures on Philip Roth and R.B. Kitaj @ Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
Sep 20 @ 7:00 pm

Philip Roth and R.B. Kitaj became good friends in London during the ’80s, and the painter influenced Roth in many ways, especially for the title character of Roth’s greatest novel, Sabbath’s Theater. Roger Porter, Professor of English and Humanities, Emeritus, Reed College focuses his lecture on Roth and Kitaj’s shared attitudes, or perhaps those of their characters and their painterly subjects, regarding desire, ecstasy, and the inevitable demise. The title of the lecture is a paraphrase of a quote by the protagonist Sabbath on the last page of Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater.

Mar
10
Sun
Art + Spirit Workshop @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Mar 10 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Art + Spirit Workshop

Willa Schneberg, poet and ceramic artist, will join us for a two-hour workshop based on poems by Jewish poets that are in part inspired by biblical texts. Discussion, prompts, visualizations and opportunities to write, sketch, move and imagine will be provided.

Cost: $18.
Tickets: oregonjcc.org/art-spirit

In partnership with ORA: Northwest Jewish Artists

Mar
12
Tue
MJCC Author Series @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Mar 12 @ 6:30 pm
MJCC Author Series
Join us for this thought-provoking program that will bring an exceptional line up of authors and special events to our community.
Guest: $8. Member Cost: $5.
Series Pass: $20. Member: $12.
Tuesday, March 12 at 6:30 pm
Mary Morris – Gateway to the Moon

From award-winning novelist and memoirist Mary Morris comes the story of a sleepy New Mexican community that must come to grips with a religious and political inheritance they never expected. Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels The Jazz Palace, A Mother’s Love, and House Arrest, and of nonfiction, including the travel memoir classic “Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone.” She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction.

Tuesday, March 19 at 6:30 pm
Mark Sarvas
A son learns more about his father than he ever could have imagined when a mysterious piece of art is unexpectedly restored to him. Of all the questions asked by Sarvas’s Memento Park – about family and identity, about art and history–a central, unanswerable predicament lingers: How do we move forward when the past looms unreasonably large? Sarvas is the author of Memento Park and Harry, Revised, which was published in more than a dozen countries. His book reviews and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Threepenny Review, Bookforum and many others.
Tuesday, March 26 at 6:30 pm
Michael David Lukas
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving page-turner of a novel from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces–potent magic, forbidden love–that boldly attempt to bridge that divide. Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, which was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and has been published in fifteen languages. A graduate of Brown University, he has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Mar
13
Wed
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.

Mar
19
Tue
MJCC Author Series @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Mar 19 @ 6:30 pm
MJCC Author Series
Join us for this thought-provoking program that will bring an exceptional line up of authors and special events to our community.
Guest: $8. Member Cost: $5.
Series Pass: $20. Member: $12.
Tuesday, March 12 at 6:30 pm
Mary Morris – Gateway to the Moon

From award-winning novelist and memoirist Mary Morris comes the story of a sleepy New Mexican community that must come to grips with a religious and political inheritance they never expected. Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels The Jazz Palace, A Mother’s Love, and House Arrest, and of nonfiction, including the travel memoir classic “Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone.” She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction.

Tuesday, March 19 at 6:30 pm
Mark Sarvas
A son learns more about his father than he ever could have imagined when a mysterious piece of art is unexpectedly restored to him. Of all the questions asked by Sarvas’s Memento Park – about family and identity, about art and history–a central, unanswerable predicament lingers: How do we move forward when the past looms unreasonably large? Sarvas is the author of Memento Park and Harry, Revised, which was published in more than a dozen countries. His book reviews and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Threepenny Review, Bookforum and many others.
Tuesday, March 26 at 6:30 pm
Michael David Lukas
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving page-turner of a novel from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces–potent magic, forbidden love–that boldly attempt to bridge that divide. Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, which was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and has been published in fifteen languages. A graduate of Brown University, he has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Mar
26
Tue
MJCC Author Series @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
Mar 26 @ 6:30 pm
MJCC Author Series
Join us for this thought-provoking program that will bring an exceptional line up of authors and special events to our community.
Guest: $8. Member Cost: $5.
Series Pass: $20. Member: $12.
Tuesday, March 12 at 6:30 pm
Mary Morris – Gateway to the Moon

From award-winning novelist and memoirist Mary Morris comes the story of a sleepy New Mexican community that must come to grips with a religious and political inheritance they never expected. Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels The Jazz Palace, A Mother’s Love, and House Arrest, and of nonfiction, including the travel memoir classic “Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone.” She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction.

Tuesday, March 19 at 6:30 pm
Mark Sarvas
A son learns more about his father than he ever could have imagined when a mysterious piece of art is unexpectedly restored to him. Of all the questions asked by Sarvas’s Memento Park – about family and identity, about art and history–a central, unanswerable predicament lingers: How do we move forward when the past looms unreasonably large? Sarvas is the author of Memento Park and Harry, Revised, which was published in more than a dozen countries. His book reviews and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Threepenny Review, Bookforum and many others.
Tuesday, March 26 at 6:30 pm
Michael David Lukas
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving page-turner of a novel from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces–potent magic, forbidden love–that boldly attempt to bridge that divide. Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, which was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and has been published in fifteen languages. A graduate of Brown University, he has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
May
2
Thu
Memoir Writing Workshop @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
May 2 @ 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Mark Twain said it best when he said, “no one has an uninteresting life!” This workshop is an opportunity to explore your life and write your stories. Dorothy Dworkin, an experienced author, columnist and writing coach, will offer prompts and suggestions to get you started on writing your stories. She will help you organize your memoir with noncritical feedback from your fellow writers and from her years of experience facilitating the writing process. No experience necessary, only a desire to share your experiences with family, friends and fellow “memoirists.” Class size is limited to 12.
Thursdays
May 2 – 30
11:00 am – 12:30 pm, CG306
Cost: $50.

Register at oregonjcc.org/registration

May
9
Thu
Memoir Writing Workshop @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
May 9 @ 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Mark Twain said it best when he said, “no one has an uninteresting life!” This workshop is an opportunity to explore your life and write your stories. Dorothy Dworkin, an experienced author, columnist and writing coach, will offer prompts and suggestions to get you started on writing your stories. She will help you organize your memoir with noncritical feedback from your fellow writers and from her years of experience facilitating the writing process. No experience necessary, only a desire to share your experiences with family, friends and fellow “memoirists.” Class size is limited to 12.
Thursdays
May 2 – 30
11:00 am – 12:30 pm, CG306
Cost: $50.

Register at oregonjcc.org/registration

May
16
Thu
Memoir Writing Workshop @ Mittleman Jewish Community Center
May 16 @ 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Mark Twain said it best when he said, “no one has an uninteresting life!” This workshop is an opportunity to explore your life and write your stories. Dorothy Dworkin, an experienced author, columnist and writing coach, will offer prompts and suggestions to get you started on writing your stories. She will help you organize your memoir with noncritical feedback from your fellow writers and from her years of experience facilitating the writing process. No experience necessary, only a desire to share your experiences with family, friends and fellow “memoirists.” Class size is limited to 12.
Thursdays
May 2 – 30
11:00 am – 12:30 pm, CG306
Cost: $50.

Register at oregonjcc.org/registration