Shabbat Service and Cultural Program
Our Shabbat service, followed by a cultural program:
Who was Harry Golden? by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
Harry Golden was once the most famous Jewish writer in America. For over 20 years, Golden published a one-man newspaper, the improbably titled Carolina Israelite. His essays for the newspaper combined reminiscences of his boyhood in NY’s Lower East Side, with stinging satire ridiculing the racial segregation and Jim Crow laws he observed while living in Charlotte, North Carolina. These essays were collected into several books that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list in the 1950’s, including Only in America and For 2 Cents Plain. Golden was a larger than life character, rarely seen without a cigar and a glass of bourbon.
Join us as we explore, through his life and work, the outrageous satire and folksy wisdom of this somewhat forgotten man of letters through his life and work, as told by author Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett. She wrote the first full biography of Golden, published in 2015 by The University of North Carolina Press, entitled Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights. It illuminates a remarkable life intertwining the rise of the civil rights movement, Jewish popular culture, and the sometimes precarious position of Jews in the South and across America during the 1950s.
Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett grew up in newsrooms. She then served as an editor and writer at the Seattle Times for a decade. Following three years as an Ada Comstock Scholar at Smith College in Massachusetts, Hartnett lived in Portland, Oregon, until last year, contributing articles and book reviews to leading news sites and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Hartnett is living and writing in New Hampshire, and thanks to Zoom, remains a member of Congregation Beit Haverim in Oregon.
Click here to buy Carolina Israelite from an independent book seller near you.
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