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This article was prepared for the October 17, 2001 edition
of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Jewish-American All-Stars
Malcah Zeldis’s colorful painting "Lady
Liberty,"
a heartfelt homage to America and its hyphenated patriots, shows a
proud and nurturing Statue of Liberty standing in New York harbor
amidst a riot of flowery fireworks bursts and a boatload of folk
heroes.
The picture also heralds Princeton’s unprecedented celebration of
one immigrant group’s success. "Celebrating Jewish-American
Writers,"
marks the opening of the Leonard L. Milberg Collection of
Jewish-American
Writers, a Firestone Library exhibition, and a three-day conference
to be attended by more than two dozen well-known writers and
cartoonists
— from E.L. Doctorow to Wendy Wasserstein, from Jules Feiffer
to Tony Kushner.
"Celebrating Jewish-American Writers" opens Sunday, October
21, at 2 p.m., with an afternoon of free readings in Richardson
Auditorium
by Tony Kushner, Grace Paley, Marge Piercy, Robert Pinsky, Susan
Sontag,
and C.K. Williams. Wendy Wasserstein speaks on "My Life in the
Theater" at 8:30 p.m. in McCormick 101. Author E.L. Doctorow gives
the keynote address, on Monday, October 22, at 4:30 p.m. in Frist
Campus Center.
Froma Zeitlin, director of Princeton’s Program in Jewish Studies,
says she had the idea for her conference poster early this year.
"Coming
into Newark, I saw the Statue of Liberty and I thought, `Of course,
this was a population of immigrants." Searching for images, she
could scarcely believe her good fortune when she found Zeldis’s work
in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The
70-year-old
Zeldis, a New Yorker and children’s book illustrator said she made
her painting on cardboard both to celebrate her culture and her
recovery
from cancer.
Much has changed for America and its immigrants since September 11,
but Zeitlin says that Lady Liberty resonates more strongly than ever.
"I see it now as a timely reminder of the wonderful American
accomplishment
and its embrace of various immigrant groups that gives them a chance
to flourish and thrive," she says. "In this vein, the
accomplishment
of Jewish-American writers has been phenomenal. In terms of coming
at this particular time, after more than two years’ planning, it’s
a good time to come together and take pride in our American
culture."
Firestone Library opens its exhibition of the Leonard L. Milberg
Collection
of Jewish-American Writers on Sunday, a collection that ranges from
the early 19th century to the present, and includes Yiddish-language
writers as well as writers in English. A special edition of the
Library
Chronicle accompanies the show, with previously unpublished stories,
essays, and poems by Milberg collection writers.
A member of the Class of 1953, Leonard Milberg is the chairman of
Milberg Factors Inc., a finance company in New York City who is
described
as "a passionate collector." Milberg previously donated
special
collections of Irish poetry and "Pride of Place," a collection
of American prints.
All conference events are open to the public. Website:
Firestone Library gallery hours are Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5
p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Phone: 609-258-3184.
Sunday, October 21
Grace Paley, Marge Piercy, Robert Pinsky, Susan Sontag, C.K. Williams.
’53 Collection of Jewish-American Writers.
"My Life in the Theater."
Monday, October 22
All events in the Film and Dance Theater, Frist Student Center.
Robert
Alter, "Philip Roth’s American Trilogy"; Sidra Dekoven Ezrahi,
"American Diaspora"; Alvin Rosenfeld, "Jewish Writers
and Readers."
Hellerstein, "Translating and Selecting: A Norton Anthology of
Jewish American Literature"; Hana Wirth-Nesher, "Passing in
The Promised Land"; Irena Klepfisz, "Women and Yiddish";
Jeffrey Shandler, "Materializing the Mother Tongue."
Isler, Alicia Ostriker, Jonathan Wilson.
"Halftone
Printing in the Jewish Press and Other Objects of Idol Worship."
Tuesday, October 23
All events in the Film and Dance Theater, Frist Student Center.
Atlas, "Bellow’s Legacy"; Morris Dickstein, "Weapons of
the Spirit: Contemporary Jewish Writing"; Daniel Mendelsohn,
"Ghetto,
Shmetto: Jews, Gays, and the Paradoxes of Cultural Identity."
Zeitlin
Leslie Epstein, "The Uniqueness of the Holocaust"; Melvin
Jules Bukiet, "Nothing Makes You Free"; Thane Rosenbaum,
"The
Golems of Gotham"; James Young, "After-Images of the
Holocaust."
Feiffer,
and Art Spiegelman, James Young.
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