Book Discussion
PROTOCALS: AN ERASURE
by Daniela Naomi Molnar

Thursday, September 3rd @ 7:00pm
Phoenix Bookstore
​Rutland VT

Please join the Rutland Jewish Center for a discussion of Daniela Naomi Molnar's book Protocals: An Erasure, a finalist for the National Jewish Book award. 

An exploration of power, memory, belief, and the dangers and possibilities of language. 

PROTOCOLS: An Erasure transforms the world’s most influential antisemitic document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, into an erasure poem exploring questions of power, history, and language. By redacting words from the original document, the book-length poem breathes space into a text dense with hatred, excavating new meanings and questions. It asks what forms power can take other than oppression and control and how language, weaponized and eroded, can be a tool for healing. And it calls for unity and human connection at a time of polarization and fear.

Accompanying the poem, a lyric essay excavates my deep personal connection to the source text, weaving personal and collective history by traversing former concentration camps, immigrant communities in New York City, and remote desert wildernesses. 

Protocals: An Erasure is available for purchase at Phoenix Bookstore in Rutland Vermont and online.
For more information please contact the RJC.

Save the date for comedy at ICM with catering be Amy’s On The Road!

Tot Shabbat!

Tot Shabbat for Jewish children ages birth to 6 years. Everyone is welcome.

Hungarian Strudel Party!

Need assistance with registration? Email  the office

Yizkor and Shabbat Morning Worship 

In the sanctuary and on Zoom with Rabbi Haigh.

Yizkor Link to Zoom

Join us in person or on Zoom as we celebrate the blessing of the “first fruits” and our youngest Shir Shalom members. Please bring the first cuttings from your garden. In keeping with the holiday and the tradition of eating dairy on Shavuot, please bring something to share.

Shavuot Zoom Link

This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the twentieth century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism. The resultant inter-generational showdowns—including disputes over the introduction of electricity, radio, and electric trolley—are rendered with humor, pathos, and a finely controlled satiric pen. Moyshe Kulbak, a contemporary of the Soviet Jewish writer Isaac Babel, picks up where Sholem Aleichem left off a generation before, exploring in this book the transformation of Jewish life.

Not yet a member of the Doris Bass Book Club? Click here to register!

Please join us for International Folk Dancing at the RJC. Come and dance, or you can enjoy sitting and watching. Please bring clean, dry shoes for dancing.

For more information, please get in touch with Judy.

Join us for a discussion of "The Book of Israela" by CBE Rabbinic Team Member, Rabbi Rena Blumenthal. In person, in the Social Hall.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Jerusalem, 2002: the height of the sec­ond intifa­da. Kobi Bena­mi is a mid­dle-aged psy­chol­o­gist whose life is in sham­bles. His wife has thrown him out for casu­al phi­lan­der­ing; his daugh­ter won’t speak to him; and he may lose his job due to indif­fer­ent work habits. At this des­per­ate junc­ture, Kobi gets a new patient, Israela, whose sto­ry is full of uncan­ny Bib­li­cal ref­er­ences, and whose pow­er­ful enig­mat­ic hus­band Y may or may not exist. Israela hasn’t seen Y in months, but she is being stalked by his prophet-like emis­saries, span­ning the spec­trum of Israeli soci­ety — Ortho­dox to sec­u­lar, right-wing set­tlers to left-wing urban elites — unit­ed only in their harsh con­dem­na­tion of Israel, a fierce devo­tion to Y, and con­nec­tion to The Out­stretched Arm, a sin­is­ter orga­ni­za­tion pur­port­ed to be run by Y.

As Kobi becomes ensnared in a sur­re­al encounter with anthro­po­mor­phized ancient Israel, and pre­oc­cu­pied with ques­tions about the nature and exis­tence of Y, he is forced to con­front his dys­func­tion­al life pat­terns, his family’s trag­ic past, and the end­less war that rages around him.

On Zoom by registration.

Choose from pre arranged mitzvah projects including helping sort donations at Listen, playing music for and games with folks at a nursing home, making meals for the Haven, making dog and cat toys for the Humane Society, cleaning the UVJC cemetery gravestones, and more.

Please click HERE for details.

Tot Shabbat on May 16, at the Roth Center (10:30-11:30), suitable for families with children ages birth to 6 years