Author Daniel Klein to speak at the Lenox Library
Lenox — Harvard philosopher and bestselling author Daniel Klein will appear in the Lenox Library’s Sedgwick Reading Room on Sunday, January 24, at 4 p.m. to speak about his recent book “ ‘Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It:’ Wisdom of the Great Philosophers on How to Live.”
Klein and co-author Thomas Cathcart are best known for the New York Times bestseller “Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes,” which has been translated into 25 languages. Daniel Klein has written many thrillers, mysteries, novels, and plays as well as material for television shows and stand-up comics.
Klein’s lecture is part of the Lenox Library’s Distinguished Lecture Series. Admission is free, but the library would greatly appreciate donations. Contact the library for more information at (413) 637-0197.
–E.E.
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Sunday activities at the Ramsdell Library
Housatonic — Ramsdell Public Library will be open on Sunday, January 24, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with books, films, Sunday papers, coffee, great snacks, and short films for both kids and adults.
The afternoon will begin with a tutorial from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on basic techniques for making short films with an iPhone. A selection of new and classic animated films and cartoons for all ages will be shown from 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. Short films for adults will run from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., highlighted by a screening of Sam Handel’s “The River,” a 2013 short film shot in both Great Barrington and Housatonic and culminating at the Green River.
The library will be open on winter Sunday afternoons for an 11-week pilot program through Sunday, March 20. All events at the library are free and the public is welcome. Call the library for more information at (413) 274-3738.
–E.E.
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Rabbi Israel Dresner on Dr. King and the Jewish commitment to civil rights
Pittsfield — On Monday, January 25, at 10:45 a.m., the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires will present Rabbi Israel S. Dresner, one of the most prominent rabbis who participated in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and beyond. He will discuss his own work and his experiences with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a free program at Congregation Knesset Israel.
Israel Dresner, rabbi emeritus from Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne, N.J., was the closest rabbi to Dr. King and who, on two occasions (1963 and 1966), addressed his congregation. He was the first rabbi arrested in the freedom struggle in 1961 in an interfaith clergy Freedom Ride. At Dr. King’s request, Rabbi Dresner helped organize the largest group of clergy ever arrested at one time in American history (65 Protestant ministers and 10 rabbis) in Albany, Ga., in August 1962. In 1964 at Dr. King’s request, he organized the largest number of rabbis ever arrested at one time (18) in St. Augustine, Fla. He was later dubbed “the Most Arrested Rabbi in America.”
Dresner continued his civil rights activism and advocacy throughout his career as a reform Jewish rabbi in northern New Jersey, participating in the 1962 Albany campaign to desegregate municipal facilities and in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march. He retired in 1996.
For more information call the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires at (413) 442-4360 x10.
–E.E.
