The Sandra K. Wasserman Jewish Studies Center is honored to host a reading and conversation with Roslyn Bernstein, Baruch Professor Emerita and author of the novel The Girl Who Counted Numbers. This event will be Professor Bernstein's first public reading for The Girl Who Counted Numbers, followed by a discussion with Dr. Jessica Lang, Dean of Weissman School of Arts and Sciences.
Did Uncle Yakov, her father's older brother survive the Holocaust? That was the challenge given to Susan Reich, a 17-year-old American girl by her father in 1961. After years of failure in his search, it was now Susan's turn to find out what happened to Yakov, who did not come to America with the family in 1921 and whose records were never found after the concentration camps were liberated. The Girl Who Counted Numbers brings to life two intertwined coming-of-age stories, a generation apart and an ocean apart -one gay and one straight. It is both a family mystery and a personal revelation. The seven months that Roslyn Bernstein spent in Jerusalem in 1961, when she listened to the stories of immigrants and survivors and daydreamed about their meanings, was a source of inspiration for the novel. She has been attentive to historical accuracies of time and place but the story of Susan Reich, her family, and friends is fictional.
Roslyn Bernstein is professor emerita of journalism and creative writing at Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is the founding director of the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence Program at Baruch College. Bernstein has reported on arts and culture from around the globe for such print publications as the New York Times, Newsday, the Village Voice, New York Magazine, Parents, Artnews, and the Columbia Journalism Review, and for such online publications as Tablet, Artslant, Tikkun, Huffington Post, and Guernica.
Questions? Please write carina.pasquesi@baruch.cuny.edu