February 8, Tuesday, 7:45 pm

The Unspoken Alliance:

Israel’s Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa
Sally & Seymour Olshin
By Sasha Polakow-Suransky
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Adult Education
A revealing account of how Israel’s booming arms industry and apartheid
South Africa’s international isolation led to a secretive military partnership
between two seemingly unlikely allies.
Prior to the Six-Day War, Israel was a darling of the international left: socialist
idealists like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir vocally opposed apartheid and
built alliances with black leaders in newly independent African nations. South
Africa, for its part, was controlled by a regime of Afrikaner nationalists who
had enthusiastically supported Hitler during World War II.
But after Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, the country
found itself estranged from former allies and threatened anew by old enemies.
As both states became international pariahs, their covert military relationship
blossomed: they exchanged billions of dollars’ worth of extremely sensitive
material, including nuclear technology, boosting Israel’s sagging economy and
strengthening the beleaguered apartheid regime.
Am HaSefer

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is a senior editor at Foreign Affairs and holds a doctorate in

modern history from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar from 2003 to

AM HASEFER
2006. His writing has appeared in The American Prospect, the International Herald Trib-
une, The New Republic, and Newsweek. He lives in Brooklyn.

March 8, Tuesday, 7:45 pm

Jews, Monet and Anti-Semitism:
This year the Great Neck Synagogue’s
The Story of Stereotype
Am Ha Sefer Program has selected a group of books and
By Abraham Foxman
films, their authors and directors, that will be of special
In the wake of Bernie Madoff’s ruinous investment schemes, Abe
Foxman takes a cultural and political look at the many variations
interest to the various groups within
throughout history of the assumptions made about Jews and our community family.
money. These include Jews as greedy global capitalists; Jews as
wealthy secret communists; Jews as cheapskates; and Jews We trust you will enjoy the year, and urge you all to
controlling the media with their money to attend. You will find it a stimulating hour
unduly influence society. Foxman makes the out of the house and work.
case that these stereotypes have permeated
cultures globally and argues that these beliefs
are rooted in deep-seated and pervasive
anti-Semitism. As with all forms of bigotry, Dr. Barry Libin, Chairman
society at large needs to respond to the
persistence of stereotypes by educating the Dr. Robert Knepper, Co-Chairman.
young, denouncing hate speech, and by
encouraging Jews, like all groups, to express
pride in their ethnic and religious heritage. Great Neck Synagogue, 26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023
516-487-6100 www.gns.org
 October 12, Tuesday, 7:45 p.m.
Film: The Forgotten Refugees,
Produced by the David Project
Produced by The David Project for Jewish Leadership and Isra TV, “The
Forgotten Refugees” explores the history, culture, and forced exodus of Middle
Eastern and North African Jewish communities in the second half of the 20th
century. Using extensive testimony of refugees from Egypt, Yemen, Libya,
Iraq, and Morocco the film recounts the stories - of joy and suffering - that
nearly one million individuals have carried with them for so long. The film
weaves personal stories with dramatic archival footage of rescue missions,
historic images of exodus and resettlement, and analyses by contemporary
scholars to tell the story of how and why the Jewish population in the Middle
East and North Africa declined from one million in 1945 to several thousand
today.
November 9, Tuesday, 7:45 pm
The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife
of Menachem Mendel Schneerson
By Samuel Heilman & Menachem Friedman
From the 1950s until his death in 1994,
Menachem Mendel Schneerson--revered by his
Am HaSefer
followers worldwide simply as the Rebbe--built
the Lubavitcher movement from a relatively
small sect within Hasidic Judaism into the
powerful force in Jewish life that it is today.
Swept away by his expectation that the
Messiah was coming, he came to believe that
he could deny death and change history.
Samuel Heilman is Distinguished Professor of
Sociology at Queens College and holds the
Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at
the Graduate Center of the City University of
New York. His books include Sliding to the
Right: The Contest for the Future of American
Jewish Orthodoxy. Menachem Friedman is
professor emeritus of sociology at Bar-Ilan
University.
December 14, Tuesday, 7:45 pm
Mom Still Likes You Best:
The Unfinished Business Between Siblings
By Jane Isay
My new book, Mom Still Likes You Best: The Unfinished Business
Between Siblings, describes a range of relationships, from best
friends to Wedding and Wake siblings. I think it will relieve people
to learn that almost every sibling relationship has had its rough
times, and that unconditional love and acceptance between
siblings is rare--and often the product of hard work and
determination.
January 11, 2011, Tuesday, 7:45 pm
When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone:
The Epic Struggle To Save Soviet Jewry
By Gal Beckerman
At the end of World War II, nearly three
million Jews were trapped inside the Soviet
Union. They lived a paradox--unwanted by
a repressive Stalinist state, yet forbidden to
leave. When They Come for Us, We'll Be
Gone is the astonishing and inspiring story
of their rescue. Journalist Gal Beckerman
draws on newly released Soviet
government documents as well as hundreds
of oral interviews with refuseniks, activists,
Zionist "hooligans," and Congressional
staffers. He shows not only how the
movement led to a mass exodus in 1989,
but also how it shaped the American Jewish
Am HaSefer
community, giving it a renewed sense of
spiritual purpose and teaching it to flex its
political muscle. He also makes a convincing case that the movement put
human rights at the center of American foreign policy for the very first time,
helping to end the Cold War. This multi-generational saga, filled with
suspense and packed with revelations, provides an essential missing piece of
Cold War and Jewish history.
Gal Beckerman is a reporter at The Forward. He was a longtime editor and staff writer
at the Columbia Journalism Review and has also written for the New York Times Book
Review, Jerusalem Post, and Utne Reader.
January 25, Tuesday, 7:45 pm
Truth Be Veiled: A Justin Steele Murder Case
By Joel Cohen (author), Carla T. Main (contributor)
“The original version of this novel was conceived to teach law
students about ethics,” Cohen says. “However, folks, including
students, were so enthusiastic, I decided to enlist Carla’s help and
turn it into a bona fide murder mystery. It’s difficult for the
layperson to imagine how easily the wheels of justice can get mired
in technical issues and layers of truth and falsehood. Anyone who
cares about justice and the law will hopefully be intrigued by an
insider’s account.”
Joel Cohen, an experienced white-collar criminal lawyer, joined the Stroock firm in 1985
after ten years as a prosecutor, first with the New York State Special Prosecutor’s Office
and, second, as an Assistant Attorney-in-Charge with the U.S. Justice Department’s
Organized Crime & Racketeering Section (E.D.N.Y.). In those positions, he concentrated
in the investigation, prosecution and trial of organized crime figures and corruption
cases involving high-ranking public officials in New York, including the top leadership of
the Colombo crime family, many members of the elite narcotics division of the New York
Police Department, and the first ever prosecution of a sitting FBI agent.