JCC, ADL, JCRC, and JFGI offer a 4-part series of community dialogues addressing the most common antisemitic tropes. The sessions will cover topics such as power, anti-Zionism, and denial, with each session led by experts from the Jewish community. The aim is to provide a safe space for both non-Jewish and Jewish audiences to learn about, identify, and effectively respond to these tropes whenever they encounter them.

Dates:

8/17: Greed + Power

9/19: Blood Libel (use of blood in rituals) + Deicide

10/12: Anti-Zionism + Disloyalty

12/14: Holocaust Denial (antisemitic conspiracy theories that the Holocaust never happened) + Action Steps

A former neo-Nazi and a second-generation Holocaust survivor engage in conversation. Colleagues and friends of many years, Arno Michaelis and Tamara Meyer share a belief in the value of storytelling as a means of healing and as an antidote to hate. Talking about antisemitism from the perspectives of both victim and perpetrator, their presentation is designed to help respond to antisemitic incidents, understand how antisemitism takes hold in individuals and in society, raise awareness of the Holocaust and how antisemitism repeats itself, empower people to fight antisemitism effectively, and create community cohesion and resilience.

Tamara Meyer is a child of German Jewish Holocaust survivors who has been exploring her family legacy and showcasing the stories of survivors for the past two decades. As a participant in dialogue groups in Berlin that include former Nazis, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, Tamara has experienced first-hand both the extraordinary challenge and reward of engaging with those who at another time would have been her most dangerous enemies.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Arno Michaelis was a neo-Nazi skinhead. Single parenthood, love for his daughter, and the forgiveness shown by people he once hated all helped to turn Arno’s life around, bringing him to embrace diversity and practice gratitude for all life. Arno is now a speaker, filmmaker, author of My Life After Hate, and co-author of The Gift of Our Wounds. Arno also works as an interventionist at Parents 4 Peace, helping to lead people out of hate groups and away from all violent extremist ideologies, and to support their families. Refuge, his latest film project, is now available.

Sponsored by Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis.

In the past few years, teacher Chasten Glezman Buttigieg has emerged on the national stage, having left his classroom in South Bend, Indiana, to travel cross-country in support of his husband, former mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Pete’s groundbreaking presidential campaign. Through Chasten’s joyful, witty social media posts, the public gained a behind-the-scenes look at his life with Pete on the trail.

In his moving, uplifting memoir that was an instant New York Times bestseller, he recounts his journey to finding acceptance as a gay man. He recalls his upbringing in rural Michigan, where he knew he was different, and recounts his coming out and how he’s healed from revealing his secret to his family, friends, community, and the world. And he tells the story of meeting his boyfriend, whom he would marry and who would eventually become a major Democratic leader.

With unflinching honesty, unflappable courage, and great warmth, Chasten Buttigieg relays his experience of growing up in America and embracing his true self, while inspiring others to do the same.

Program is free but registration is required. Please plan to arrive early, as parking at IHC will be limited.

Sponsored by Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation. Buttigieg will be interviewed by Rabbi Brett Krichever and Cantor Aviva Marer.

Jonathan Ornstein has served as the executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow since its opening in April 2008. The JCC is devoted to rebuilding Jewish life in Krakow and has become one of Poland’s most visible signs of Jewish revival. While JCC Krakow continues to provide cultural programming, education for all ages and social activities, it has also served as a resettlement center for Ukrainian refugees since the war’s beginning. Learn more about their efforts and how JCC Krakow is embodying the Jewish value of “welcoming the stranger” at this inspiring program.

Ornstein will be interviewed by Megan Maurer.

Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of six books, including his most recent King: A Life, which The New York Times hailed as a “monumental” new biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Barack Obama included on his 2023 summer reading list, and Sharon McMahon (@sharonsaysso on Instagram, “America’s Government Teacher” with 1 million followers) recommended on her own and in Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper digital platform as “meticulously researched with lots of new insight from people who personally knew King and understand his legacy.” The first major biography of King in 40 years, based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of recently released pages of FBI files as well as thousands of personal papers from King’s associates and friends, this is King like you’ve never seen him before: flawed, brave, radical…and under heavy attack by the FBI.

Eig’s previous book, Ali: A Life (which he spoke about at the 2017 Ann Katz Festival) was named by Esquire magazine as one of the 25 greatest biographies of all time. Joyce Carol Oates called Ali “an epic of a biography” and Ken Burns called Eig a “master storyteller.” His books have been listed among the best of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Eig has appeared on the Today Show, NPR’s Fresh Air, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Eig will be interviewed by Dr. Erica Buchanan-Rivera, social justice educator.

This program has been made possible through a grant from Indiana Humanities in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities and by ADL Midwest.

Israeli-born, France-based pianist Yonathan Avishai is a sophisticated performer known for his introspective, harmonically nuanced approach to modern creative jazz as well as his classical background. This is his debut U.S. tour. Enjoy an immersive, stream-of-consciousness theatrical performance about the creative process and what it means to be an artist and musician.

Yonathan Avishai “Pianist – A musical and theatrical portrait”

Performance, music and texts – Yonathan Avishai
Sharon Mohar – Staging and dramaturgy
Grangil – Scenography and lighting design

Israeli-born, France-based pianist Yonathan Avishai is a renowned international jazz pianist, and a regular artistic partner of trumpeter Avishai Cohen and bassist Omer Avital. Yonathan is a true storyteller, giving the impression that he composes silence and sculpts melodies. For his debut US tour he will be presenting a unique and extremely personal musical and theatrical portrait. Created in collaboration with director Sharon Mohar, “Pianist” enlightens a musician in the intimacy of his dialogue with his instrument, revealing all that we usually cannot see.

Reception sponsored by Gadi Boukai, TalktoTucker Realtor/Broker #gadiboukairealtor.

This year’s Community Reads book, My Last Innocent Year is a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton and Lewinsky scandal about a young woman on the brink of sexual and artistic awakening, navigating her way toward independence. It’s 1998 and Isabel Rosen has one semester left at Wilder College, an elite New Hampshire college where tradition reigns and frat boys rule. Still mourning the death of her mother nearly four years earlier, Isabel has struggled to find her place behind Wilder’s ivy-covered walls. After a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling, Isabel wonders if she will ever be able to call Wilder home. Enter R.H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s married professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented—the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better or worse. Timely and wise, My Last Innocent Year reckons with the complexities of consent, what it means to be an adult, and whether or not we can ever outrun our bad decisions.

Daisy Alpert Florin is a recipient of the 2016 Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College and was a 2019–20 fellow in the BookEnds novel revision fellowship, where she worked with founding director Susan Scarf Merrell. My Last Innocent Year is her first novel. Accolades for My Last Innocent Year include: New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Washington Post Staff Pick, USA Today Must-Read Book, Entertainment Weekly and Town & Country Must-Read Book of Winter.

This is a Jewish Book Council program.

Considered for decades the “gold standard of TV war correspondents” by Anderson Cooper, Martin Fletcher was an NBC News Correspondent and bureau chief in Tel Aviv for nearly 30 years. Teachers are the people Fletcher met throughout his work as a news correspondent, often on the worst day of their lives. He watched as they picked up the pieces following personals tragedy and discovered the invaluable lessons of carrying on, no matter the circumstances. Through intimate profiles, Martin Fletcher’s Teachers details the struggles of everyday people in extraordinary times — war, revolution, natural disasters, and yes, life. Fletcher’s writing is uplifting as he examines the truth of resilience despite hardship. These are the people he sought out in his international reporting, detailing their woes while celebrating their will to survive and recover.

Teachers offers a unique take on reporting, as it features a travelling photon exhibit that Fletcher created to accompany the book. Each chapter is paired with an extraordinary digital montage to illustrate the stories take directly from his reporting from NBC news programs. At a time when news coverage is often dismissed as fake or biased, Teachers is a welcome reminder of the integrity, devotion, and empathy that goes into true reporting of the world. As Tom Brokaw wrote, “Fletcher has a calling.”

Fletcher has won five Emmys and a Columbia University DuPont Award — a Pulitzer for work in television — as well as awards from the Overseas Press Club and Royal Society of Television.

This is a Jewish Book Council program. Fletcher will be interviewed by WTHR Weekend Anchor Jennie Runevitch.

Sponsored by Congregation Beth Shalom.

Walk down memory lane with artists that have shown in the JCC art gallery over the years. Stick around for the Heartland Shorts film screenings!

Proceeds from all art sales will go towards funding the JCC Social Justice Fund.

A perennial favorite – two great Festivals in one program.

Exact film selections to be announced. Come early for the “25 Years of the Ann Katz Festival” retrospective art gallery reception!

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the timing appeared perfect to bring Sesame Street to millions of children living in the former Soviet Union. With the Muppets envisioned as ideal ambassadors of Western idealistic values, no one anticipated just how challenging and dangerous this would prove to be. In Muppets in Moscow, Natasha Lance Rogoff brings the story to life.

Natasha Lance Rogoff, a young American TV producer fluent in Russian, was chosen to lead a crew of hundreds of American and Russian artists, producers, educators, writers, and puppeteers to create the Russian adaptation of Sesame Street. Against the backdrop of bombings and the assassination of her Russian broadcast partners, Lance Rogoff and the team remained determined to bring laughter, learning, and a new way of seeing the world to children in Russia and across the former Soviet empire.

In her book, she illuminates how cultural clashes imbued nearly every aspect of the production, from the show’s educational framework to scriptwriting to the new Russian Muppets themselves, often pitting Sesame Street’s Western values against nearly four centuries of Russian thought. In spite of the challenges, the show went on to become a major hit, airing for over a decade.

Muppets in Moscow explores post-Soviet societal tensions that continue to thwart the Russian people’s efforts to create a better future for their country. More than just a story of a children’s show, it provides a valuable perspective about Russia’s people, their culture, and their complicated relationship with the West that remains more relevant than ever today.

This is a Jewish Book Council program.

On the eve of Kristallnacht, hear a preview of new orchestral piece Anne Frank’s Tree, composed by Victoria Bond and performed by a quartet from the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra (full version to premiere in January 2024). Saplings from the chestnut tree in front of Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam were planted all over the world, including by the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis — when it was found that the original tree was suffering from a serious disease, the Anne Frank House decided, with the permission of the owner, to gather chestnuts, germinate them, and donate the saplings. Through a musical meditation on Anne’s tree as a symbol of hope, Bond connects audiences to that sapling.

The composer, Victoria Bond, will join us live and in person for this special performance.

Presented in partnership with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. Sponsored by Congregation Beth-El Zedeck.

Texas native Benji Lovitt immigrated to Israel in 2006. He has performed stand-up comedy (including opening for Jim Gaffigan) and delivered cultural presentations about Israel for audiences in North America, Israel, Europe, South Africa, and Australia and has been featured in Time Magazine and The Atlantic. In Israel 201, he and his co-author Joel Chasnoff pull back the curtain to unveil a more complete and comprehensive portrait of Israel that extends beyond the headlines and typical Israel narrative, diving into topics like shomer Shabos car insurance policies, ancient marriage laws, Arab Israeli stand-up comedy, Druze high schools, and LGBTQ activism in the IDF, and answering questions like “How did Jerusalem’s cat problem spur religious debate?” and “Why are Israelis so blunt, even when the truth hurts?”

This is a Jewish Book Council program.

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Ann Katz Festival and cult classic film The Big Lebowski! Dress up and enjoy a palooza-style event complete with White Russians, bowling, and more! And, of course, a screening of The Big Lebowski.

Warning, the film includes a generous smattering of “off color” four letter words.

Palooza will begin at 7 pm, film screening will begin at 8 pm.

Acclaimed Black Jewish food writer and culinary historian Michael Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South and Koshersoul: The Faith & Food Journey of an African American Jew, joins Indianapolis food scene leaders Candace Boyd and former MasterChef contestant Tanorria Askew for a live recording of their podcast Black Girls Eating, a podcast about two brilliant Black women creating their own tables and making good trouble by flipping a few, too. This is the closing event of the Spirit & Place Festival, in celebration of its NOURISH theme.

Twitty has appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern and Many Rivers to Cross with Dr. Henry Louis Gates. His book The Cooking Gene won the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing and book of the year, making him the first Black author so awarded, and Koshersoul was named the 2022 Jewish book of the year. Southern Living named him one of “Fifty People Changing the South,” TheRoot.com added him to their 100 most influential African Americans under 45, The Forward named him one of the most influential American Jews, and Bon Appetit included his work in their compilation of 2019’s best food writing.

This is a Spirit & Place program, co-presented by Flanner House.

This masterful novel of psychological suspense from the New York Times bestselling author of The Art Forger follows a cast of unforgettable characters whose lives intersect when a harrowing accident occurs at the Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Serge is a homeless street photographer who sleeps in his storage unit; Marta is an illegals immigrant who seeks refuge from ICE by hiding in hers; Liddy camps out in hers after escaping her abusive husband; Jason is a lawyer who uses his unit as his office; Rose is the office manager who takes kickbacks; and Zach the buildings owner is an ex-drug dialer. When a fateful accident occurs, these six very different people, with seemingly no link to each other beyond the Metropolis Storage Ware-house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, see their precariously balanced lives torn apart. But was it an accident or something else? Suicide, perhaps? Murder?

This is a Jewish Book Council program. Shapiro will be interviewed by Barbara Shoup.

JCC, ADL, JCRC, and JFGI offer a 4-part series of community dialogues addressing the most common antisemitic tropes. The sessions will cover topics such as power, anti-Zionism, and denial, with each session led by experts from the Jewish community. The aim is to provide a safe space for both non-Jewish and Jewish audiences to learn about, identify, and effectively respond to these tropes whenever they encounter them.

Dates:

8/17: Greed + Power

9/19: Blood Libel (use of blood in rituals) + Deicide

10/12: Anti-Zionism + Disloyalty

12/14: Holocaust Denial (antisemitic conspiracy theories that the Holocaust never happened) + Action Steps