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CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

Many of our Advisory Board Members have recently published books. For more information, please see  http://www.rememberwomen.org//BkReviews

Congratulations to Advisory Board Member Rabbi Tamar (Tami) Crystal, as she assumes her new post at Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue in Mequo, Wisconsin. For details, see http://www.jewishchronicle.org/article.php?article_id=12263

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER ANNA ROSMUS HAS A NEW BOOK ABOUT WORLD WAR II ENTITLED RAGNARÖK

BOARD MEMBER LILLY RIVLIN DEBUTS FILM AT SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

REMEMBER THE WOMEN INSTITUTE WELCOMES TWO NEW MEMBERS TO THE ADVISORY BOARD

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER PUBLISHES NOVEL

AVIVA CANTOR'S ARTICLE ON LEMKIN AND GENOCIDE IN NAAMAT WOMAN MAGAZINE

RAGNARÖK

Advisory Board Member Anna Rosmus has a new book about World War II. Entitled RAGNARÖK and published by Dorfmeister, this book is a sequel to her VALHALLA FINALE, published in 2009. In the new book, advancing US soldiers are seen celebrating Pesach in buildings such as a cathedral or a destroyed synagogue. Many photos show concentration camps in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

WORLD PREMIER
“GRACE PALEY: COLLECTED SHORTS” BY LILLLY RIVLIN AT SAN FRANCICO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

New York icon, author/activist Grace Paley is alive and well in Lilly  Rivlin’s latest film which has its World Premier at  the preeminent San Francisco Jewish Film festival at the fabled Castro theatre in San Francisco on July 25 at 11:00 am and continues to Berkeley, August 1, at 12:00 at the Roda Theatre, as well as to other sites in Northern California. 

The 75 minute documentary, "GRACE PALEY: COLLECTED SHORTS" is a comprehensive history of one of our most beloved writers.  Rivlin chose to make a film about Grace Paley because she “combined the best of all possible worlds- literature, politics, and love of humanity. Grace was a real mensch.”  

Grace Paley’s life illuminates the major protest movements of the latter part of the 20th century, culminating in the feminist movement, regarded by some social theorists as the most important movement of those tumultuous times. Translated into 92 languages, Paley was New York’s first official state author and past poet laureate of Vermont. Ranked among the great writers of her generation by peers like Philip Roth, Paley combined a life as a master short story writer, compared to Chekhov, with political activism, motherhood, teaching and being a cherished friend.  

The film takes the viewer on a journey from Grace’s early life as the child of Russian Jewish refugees who fled oppression for the freedom of America.  They were Socialists who instilled in her a passion for justice. Later, her talent for writing poetry was encouraged by W.H. Auden with whom she studied. Grace went on to teach creative writing for twenty-two years at Sarah Lawrence College where she was a major influence on her students artistically while inspiring their social and political “Responsibility” (the title of what is arguably her most emblematic poem)."Grace Paley: Collected Shorts" has no narration. The structure is a visual parallel of Paley’s life and writings revealed in colorful “shorts” and told in her own voice. 

Rivlin, whose films "The Tribe" and "Gimme a Kiss" both premiered at the SFJFF is no stranger to the Bay area.  She was a graduate student in political science at the U. of California, Berkeley in the heady and turbulent '60s.  She became a filmmaker in midlife, documenting women, both notable and ordinary who have one thing in common…they are all political.  In producing Grace Paley’s story, her first biography, Rivlin teamed up with three-time Emmy award winner Margaret Murphy.  The two first worked together on Rivlin’s last film “Can You Hear Me? Israeli and Palestinian Women Fight for Peace.”
Press kit available upon request.

Related websites: www.gracepaleythefilm.com and www.lillyrivlin.com/

Remember the Women Institute welcomes two new members to the Advisory Board: Dr. Barbara Distel, Germany, director of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site from 1975 to 2008 and co-editor of a 9-volume history of Nazi concentration camps, Der Ort des Terrors; and Dr. Zuzana Polackova, Slovak Republic, project coordinator for the international research project "Institutionalization of the Foreign Policy of the Slovak Republic" at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava. 

We are pleased to announce that one of our Advisory Board members has published a novel, using a pseudonym. See http://www.elledruskin.com/ for information about To Catch a Cop.

Aviva Cantor's Article on Lemkin and Genocide in Naamat Woman Magazine

Aviva Cantor’s article, “Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention: Living Legacy of  Lonely Lawyer,” appears in the June issue of NAAMAT WOMAN magazine, the publication of Naamat USA. The article is based on her coverage of a major conference on “Genocide and Human Experience: Raphael Lemkin’s Thought and Vision,” sponsored by the Center for Jewish History (CJH) and 2 of the partners under its umbrella, in New York, plus additional research.

Aviva became interested in Dr. Lemkin when she read the chapters about his major work in Samantha Power’s ground-breaking book, “A Problem from Hell: American in an Age of Genocide.” Lemkin, who escaped from Poland at the beginning of the Holocaust, originated the concept of “genocide’ (and coined the term itself) and conceived of an international treaty to prevent and stop it. He sacrificed his health and personal life to draft the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and drew on his knowledge of 10 languages to lobby at the UN for its adoption and ratification. It went into effect in January, 1951, but it was not until 42 years later that the UN drew on it to take action against this mega-crime.

Lemkin’s 50th yahrzeit was in August, 2009, and the CJH conference took place in November. Speakers included historians, political scientists, jurists, anthropologists and philosophers from all over the world. There was a great deal of discussion on what could be done to head off genocide and who should do this and how. Daniel Goldhagen’s PBS film, “Worse Than War,” was premiered at the conference.

The article can be obtained in PDF form from NAAMAT WOMAN via email to: naamat@naamat.org or by writing to the magazine at 350 Fifth Ave. NY NY 10118, Suite 4700. Naamat USA supports the work of Naamat in Israel, which advocates for and provides assistance to women’s causes in Israel.