Calendar

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
22
Sun
Men’s Club Speaker Series – Presenter Judy Margles @ Congregation Neveh Shalom
Mar 22 @ 9:40 am – 9:55 am

Please join the Men’s Club for their popular brunch speaker series with Director of OJMCHE Judy Margles. She will provide a general overview of the Oregon Jewish Museum and what they do and share the planned and upcoming work and the role the Museum will have in helping to build the curriculum to implement the new Oregon state law about Holocaust and genocide education. $5 suggested. Free for Men’s Club members. *Please note that the talk by poet Kim Stafford has been moved to Sunday, April 26.