Rabbi Dov Goldberg addressing the at Congregation B’Nai Israel Monday night. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Pain and insecurity were in the air as hundreds of Jews and non-Jewish supporters packed temples in Rumson and Tinton Falls Monday night to mourn the killing of 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue two days earlier.
Reverend Terrence K. Porter of Red Bank’s Pilgrim Baptist Church (above), and Rabbi Marc Kline (below) of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls are among the area clergy participating in a free public panel on the Brookdale campus.
Press release from Brookdale Community College
On the evening of Thursday, April 20, all members of the community are invited to a special presentation by seven area religious leaders, entitled “The Golden Rule: A Multi-Faith Dialogue.”
Hosted inside the Warner Student Life Center on the Lincroft campus of Brookdale Community College, the free 7 p.m. program will center on the “Golden Rule,” which encourages individuals to treat others as they wish to be treated, and how it is articulated across various faith traditions.
Press release from Rumson School District
Continuing a yearlong partnership between the Rumson School District and CHHANGE (the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education center at Brookdale Community College), Forrestdale School provides its 7th and 8th grade students with several fantastic educational opportunities.
In January, Rumson art teachers Amy Lepping and Robin Yaeger attended a professional development opportunity that focused on fostering an artistic response from our students as they witness the world around them. During their time at the Chhange center, the teachers were provided with a first-hand account from artist and Holocaust survivor Claire Boren, who has taken her experiences and created artistic representations in response to the events of her childhood.
Press release from Brookdale Community College
On the evening of Monday, January 30, the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education (Chhange) at Brookdale Community College will host an International Holocaust Remembrance Day Program on the Lincroft campus.
Scheduled for 7 p.m., the program is held in memory of Dr. Seymour “Sy” Siegler, a former Red Bank teacher and Brookdale psychology professor who co-founded Chhange in 1979. Siegler passed away on October 4, 2016.
Pulitzer winner Amy Ellis Nutt (above left), National Book Award finalist Julie Otsuka (right), and historical novelist James L. Haley (below) are among the celebrated wordsmiths appearing in the coming days at events in Shrewsbury, Fair Haven and Lincroft.
There’s a Pulitzer Prize winner who trained in the trenches of Jersey journalism. A novelist whose credits include a PEN/Faulkner Award and a National Book Award nomination. And a celebrated historian turned master purveyor of “ripping yarn” page-turners.
Apparently the Greater Red Bank Green hasn’t gotten the memo that books are dead, because the joy of reading, and the highly anticipated appearances of some high-profile authors, are alive and well in the coming days and nights.
Press release from Brookdale Community College
In response to the recent tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education (Chhange) at Brookdale Community College will host a special community progarm about racism and bias, on the evening of Wednesday, July 22.
Scheduled for 7 pm on the college’s Lincroft campus, “Unmasking Racism: Moving Forward Together” will feature an open discussion hosted by Detective David D’Amico, who has investigated bias crimes with the Office of the Monmouth County Prosecutor for more than 13 years.
A certified cultural diversity trainer and a commissioner with the Monmouth County Human Relations Commission, D’Amico will discuss the local and national impacts of racism and bias. Residents of all ages are invited to join D’Amico and Chhange in an effort to combat racism and suggest potential solutions the nation’s recent conflicts.
Manx bluesmaster Davy Knowles is the main-man musical guest at the 18th annual Brookdale Guitar Show – merely the biggest of several special events on campus this Sunday.
By all traditional expectations a quiet day on campus, this Sunday promises to keep the Route 520 roundabout out front of Brookdale Community College humming with visitors to the sprawling Lincroft complex.
All members of the general public are being welcomed as BCC hosts its annual Spring Open House between 12 and 2 pm, inside the Robert J. Collins Arena. Current high schoolers and the career-changing curious are invited to learn about the more than 50 degree and certificate programs offered at the county college, with guided tours available and faculty advisors from all departments on hand to answer questions about course curricula, scholarships, grants, financial aid, job training and four-year programs.
Also on-site will be representatives from partner universities such as Georgian Court and Rutgers, available for questions on streamlined transfer agreements and discounted tuition. Complimentary refreshments will be furnished by Brookdale’s Culinary Education Center, and parking for the event is available in lots 6 or 7. Take it here for more info — and take it around the corner for more happenings on campus this April 12.
Press release from Congregation B’nai Israel
On Tuesday, March 10, Congregation B’nai Israel (CBI) in Rumson will welcome guest speaker Carole Basri for a special event. A lawyer, filmmaker and expert on international relations, with a particular interest in Iraqi history, Basri will speak about the ethnic cleansing policies of the Middle East, beginning with the Jews and including the recent ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) persecution of Christians, Kurds, Yazedis and Shiite minorities. She will also show clips from her documentary films.
The 7 pm program is open to the public and refreshments will be served. Admission is free for members of CBI, Red Bank Hadassah and chhange. The non-member fee is $5. Advance registration for the program is requested by March 5 at cbirumson.org.
Press release from Congregation B’Nai Israel
“Degenerate Art” — or artwork that Hitler saw as a menace to German culture — is once again in the headlines, as looted art troves are discovered in Europe and their provenance hotly debated. What is the history behind the headlines? Why were some of the great artists of our time – Chagall, Klee, Kandinsky – targeted and their artwork banned?
On Sunday, January 11, art historian Vivian Gordon will visit Congregation B’nai Israel (CBI) in Rumson to speak on these 20th century masters and their treatment in Nazi-era Germany. The subject of a recent show at the Neue Galerie in New York City, the story of “degenerate” art also has drawn attention from the recent discovery of a huge stash of modern work found in a Munich apartment, and from the film The Monuments Men.
A specialist in European art and a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art., Vivian Gordon gives private and group tours of the Museums’s permanent collection and special exhibitions. The 11 am presentation, for which advance registration is required by Thursday, January 8, is being co-sponsored by Congregation B’nai Israel, the Red Bank Chapter of Hadassah and CHHANGE.
IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES author Julia Alvarez visits Brookdale Community College on Tuesday, in the culmination of The Big Read 2014 slate of events. (Photo by Pete Smith)
Inspired by the 1960 murders of sisters Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal — founders of the Dominican underground movement that opposed the rule of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo — the novel In the Time of the Butterflies marked the 20th anniversary of its original publication this year, by being selected as the subject of the second annual Big Read initiative for Monmouth County.
While the setting for the book by Julia Alvarez is specific to the Dominican Republic in the 1950s, the themes — freedom, equality, human rights — are universal. Beginning early last month, the slate of Big Read events organized by The Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education (Chhange) at Brookdale Community College went well beyond the printed page, encompassing art exhibits, musical performances, screenings of the 2001 Butterflies feature film, and a program of dramatic readings at Red Bank’s Two River Theater.
This Tuesday, November 25, The Big Read 2014 comes to a head with a visit by Julia Alvarez herself, as the author travels to BCC’s Lincroft campus for a pair of personal appearances.
Author Julia Alvarez is among the special guests taking part in the slate of events for The Big Read 2014, beginning this Monday and centered around her novel IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES. Inset: art by Carlos Frias.
The setting is specific: the Dominican Republic, during the time of the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. The themes, however, are universal — freedom, equality, human rights.
Inspired by the 1960 murders of the three Mirabal sisters, and marking the 20th anniversary of its original publication this year, the novel In the Time of the Butterflies becomes the centerpiece of the second annual Big Read campaign at locations in and around the Lincroft campus of Brookdale Community College.
Beginning on Monday, October 6 (and “keynoted” with a late-innings appearance by the novel’s author Julia Alvarez), The Big Read 2014 is organized by The Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education (Chhange) at BCC, in partnership with the National Endowment of the Arts and its “initiative to revitalize the role of reading in American popular culture and inspire all citizens, young and old, to participate,” in the words of Chhange Coordinator Deborah Degnan.
Press release from Congregation B’nai Israel
Jewish-Catholic relations, from Pope John XXIII to Pope Francis I, will be the topic on Wednesday, April 2, when Congregation B’nai Israel (CBI) in Rumson hosts guest speaker Dr. Carol Rittner, a Catholic nun and a Distinguished Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
The 7 pm lecture, which is co-sponsored by CBI, the Church of the Nativity of Fair Haven (Nativity) and the Center for Holocaust Human Rights & Genocide Education (CHHANGE) in Lincroft, will include comments from Reverend Robert J.W. Schecker, Pastor of Nativity, and Rabbi Jeff Sultar, spiritual leader of CBI.