Apr

10 2019

Noon Time Talks with Rebecca Clarren

12:00PM - 1:00PM  

Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education 725 NW Davis
Portland, OR

Contact Becca Biggs
503-564-1344
bbiggs@ojmche.org

Little shtetl on the Prairie: how my ancestors benefitted from the amoral policies of the past

Award-winning journalist Rebecca Clarren will be presenting "Little shtetl on the Prairie: reckoning with the past through teshuva," a free hour-long slide show and talk.

Clarren’s relatives escaped pogroms in Russia and became Jewish ranchers and homesteaders in South Dakota. Throughout her childhood, Clarren was told stories of their fortitude and luck - stories of her uncle "Bronco Lou" and of the mikvahsher great-great-grandmother took in the ice-choked creek behind their shack on the prairie - and yet among the narratives that were never shared were stories of the Lakota, their neighbors. In an effort to better understand the truth of the past and possibly find some healing, Clarren, who has written about issues impacting Indigenous Americans for national magazines such as The Nation, Indian Country Today and High Country News, has set out to find the descendants of the Lakota families who were displaced and harmed by the amoral land allotment policies which provided her family with free land. Rebecca Clarren’s project is funded by a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

This is part of the OJMCHE series of informal lunchtime conversations.

Bring a lunch or buy a lunch in Lefty’s Cafe and join us in the museum’s auditorium for a lively give and take as we share and explore ideas, experience, and expertise.