The Thirst for the Yiddish Word: Publishing Jewish Books in Communist Poland

What stories can a book tell us beyond the words on its pages? In the aftermath of the immense destruction to Polish Jewry wrought by the Holocaust, Jewish cultural activists went to enormous lengths to rebuild. In this talk, Dr. Rachelle Grossman will tell the surprising story of Yiddish books published in postwar Poland.

Hatred in the Heartland: Hubert Humphrey’s Fights Against Antisemitism and Racism on the American Homefront in the 1940s

Hubert Humphrey was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 and, in just three years, transformed it from being nationally notorious for its antisemitism and racism to being nationally acclaimed for its concrete progress on civil rights. How Humphrey accomplished what he did is both dramatic as a part of history and instructive amid the present upsurge in antisemitism. Samuel Freedman will discuss his book, Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights, which examines this obscure chapter of Humphrey’s life. It foretells the man who was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s right hand in pushing through the landmark civil rights laws of the mid-1960s and provides a powerful and useful analogue to today’s struggles.