The Center for Holocaust Education and Human Dignity of the East Valley JCC presents “Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi: The Gray Zone of Holocaust Survival” 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18, at Chandler Center for the Arts.
Professor Nancy Harrowitz of Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies will read written works by two Auschwitz survivors, Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, and discuss how they started a new life after the Holocaust.
Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi are the two most widely read authors on the subject of the Holocaust. They share their harrowing and deeply moving stories in very different ways, but are tied together through a deeply philosophical perspective, an emphasis on social justice, and the meaningful legacies they have left behind. How do they create an approach to the Holocaust that brings readers to appreciate its importance in today’s world? How can looking at their stories and how they tell them help us understand their relevance? What can we learn from these two writers/survivors? The program is the debut of a partnership with Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.
Nancy Harrowitz is a professor of Italian and Jewish studies at Boston University. She has published widely on anti-Semitism and gender in the modern period. Her most recent work includes the book “Primo Levi and the Identity of a Survivor.” At Boston University, she teaches courses on modern Italian literature, film and literature produced under fascism, and representations of the Holocaust in literature and film. She also directs the school’s new minor in Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies.
The East Valley JCC and the City of Chandler will host the annual Klezmer Fest from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, at the East Valley JCC, 908 N. Alma School Road, Chandler.
Lively and upbeat, klezmer is the traditional Jewish folk music of Eastern European Jewish communities. Over time, the style of music has grown to include instrumental music, Yiddish vocal music and modern fusion music that combines klezmer with world music such as Afro-pop, rock or hip hop.
This music festival will also include a Yiddish Experience that includes workshops and lectures focusing on topics such as genealogy and the Yiddish language. In addition, there will be children’s activities, such as inflatables, face-painting and a petting zoo, as well as kosher pizza and salads available for sale by Brad’s Mobile Pizza Oven.
Local bands include Jerusafunk, a nine-piece ensemble from Phoenix that blends traditional klezmer music with American Funk and other world music genres, such as jazz, salsa and samba; the Rural Street Klezmer Band of Temple Emanuel of Tempe that plays traditional Jewish soul music inspired by Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Yiddish theater and American jazz; Zaftic, whose rich and succulent sound is a mixture of Turkish, Arabic, Baroque, Irish and jazz; and Klezmerkaba, an 11-piece band from Tucson whose repertoire consists of klezmer pieces steeped in Eastern European tradition, as well as familiar Jewish, Yiddish and Israeli pieces from different eras and ethnicities. The festival will conclude with a massive jam session featuring all the musicians.
Tickets are $15 adults, $5 children up to age 12.
Visit evjcc.org/klezmerfest.