From the winner of the Choix Goncourt Prize Anne Berest, the Gramercy Book Club selection for August is The Postcard, a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, an enthralling investigation into family secrets, and poignant tale of a Jewish family devastated by the Holocaust. Ohio State historian and Holocaust expert Robin Judd will facilitate the group discussion.
MELTON CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES at THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY is Gramercy's Community Partner in presenting this book discussion program.
Kittie’s will be open only to attendees, beginning at 5:00 pm, with beverages and sweet and savory snacks available for purchase. The book discussion begins at 6:30 pm.
Registration is on Eventbrite. A ticket to this program includes a copy of The Postcard at a 15% discount. It is strongly encouraged that registrants read the book prior to the program.
This family saga, about a mysterious postcard received decades after WWII, plunges a daughter and her mother into the search for the truth and their roots. January 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest's maternal great-grandparents, Ephram and Emma, and their children, Nomie and Jacques--all killed at Auschwitz.
Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, family members, friends, associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to discover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. What emerges is a moving saga that shatters long-held certainties about Anne's family, her country, and herself.
Robin Judd is a specialist in Jewish, transnational, and gender history, with particular interests in Holocaust studies and the history of antisemitism. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (University of North Carolina Press) and Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933 (Cornell University Press). Robin is currently the President of the Association for Jewish Studies, the largest international learned society and professional organization representing Jewish studies and is a voting member of Ohio's Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission. She has received seven teaching awards, including the OSU Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.
