Upcoming Conference

37TH ANNUAL SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY CONFERENCE

“MOUNTAIN JEWS:  CREATING COMMUNITY IN APPALACHIA”
ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA OCTOBER 19-21

Friday 10/19

9:00-12:00:     Participants are encouraged to visit the Thomas Wolfe House and/or Black Mountain College Museum or to go on   a short walking tour of downtown Jewish Asheville.

12:15-5:00:  Optional lunch at Olive or Twist Restaurant followed by Trolley Tour of “Asheville’s Jewish Museum Without Walls,”    including University of North Carolina-Asheville’s Library Archives          

6:30:   Dinner and camp-style Kabbalat Shabbat service at  Asheville’s Jewish Community Center led by Rabbi Philip  Bentley followed by panel discussion:  "Our Southern Catskills: Camps and Resorts,” moderated by Tom  Rosenberg, Executive Director of Camp Judea, featuring former area campers and a display of artifacts from Rubin’s Osceola Lodge.

Saturday 10/20

9:00-10:15:  "Black Mountain College: A Jewish Avant-Garde in  Appalachia"

   Wendy Fergusson, “Beyond New York:  Jewish Refugees  and Homosexuals at Black Mountain College, 1933-1956”

   Steve Whitfield, "Black Mountain and Brandeis: Two Experiments in Higher Education"

   
10:30-11:45:   “Thomas Wolfe and the Jews”

   Jay Jacoby, “What’s a Nice Jewish Boy Doing Reading Look Homeward Angel?:  Wolfe’s Real and Imagined Attitudes towards Jews”

   Ellen Umansky, Moderator/Respondent

11:45-1:00:  Buffet Lunch at Sheraton Four Points

1:00-2:15:   “Judaism in Appalachia”

   Sherry Zander, “In the Hall of the Mountain Shul”

   Deb Weiner,  “A Child’s Hanukah in Appalachia:  Growing Up Jewish in the Coalfields”

   Seth Epstein , “‘The Fair Sex and Your Guests Are Invited’: Jewish Identities at Asheville’s Congregation Beth Ha-Tephila’s Temple Club in the 1930’s”

   Lee Shai Weissbach, Moderator
 

3:00-4:30:    "Jewish Artists of Western North Carolina"

   Panel of local artists at Art Museum at Pack Place

4:30-5:30:   Reception at Art Museum at Pack Place with food and  music by Bandana Klezmer.   

Evening Events: Dinner on our own

8:00-9:00    Participants are encouraged to attend reading and book-signing at Malaprop's Bookstore featuring Rich Cohen,     author of The Fish that Ate the Whale:  The Life and Times of America’s Banana King or to view screening of film back at Sheraton Four Points.

Sunday 10/21

9:00-11:00:   “Meet the Authors”: Panel of authors who’ve had books published within the last year—Rich Cohen, Marni Davis, Judy Goldman and others followed by book signings and sales of books on Southern Jewish history by many different local and national authors. 

   
11:00:    Hard Lox Festival at Pack Square

3:00-4:00:  Participants are encouraged to attend reading and book- signing at Malaprop's Bookstore featuring Judy Goldman,      author of a new memoir entitled Losing My Sister.
 

Conference Hotel Information:

Four Points by Sheraton Asheville Downtown

22 Woodfin Street
Asheville,  NC 28801
828 253-1851
Fax 828 252-9205
Mention the name: Southern Jewish Historical Society