Jewish Community Center

Shi­ra Dick­er is a rest­less writer-at- large, activist, and pub­li­cist who is cap­ti­vat­ed by con­tem­po­rary cul­ture. She has writ­ten for news­pa­pers, mag­a­zines, and news sites that are local, nation­al and glob­al. The moth­er of three adult chil­dren and a grand­moth­er known as ​“EeHee,” she lives in NYC with her hus­band, the writer Ari L. Gold­man, and Luke Wil­son the Pomeranian. Title: Loli­ta at Leonard’s of Great Neck: and Oth­er Sto­ries from the Before Times Description: The five com­pelling tales com­pris­ing Loli­ta at Leonard’s of Great Neck and Oth­er Sto­ries from the Before Times take you on an immer­sive jour­ney from 1974 to the 2000s. Eigh­teen-year-old Anna, a Jew­ish col­lege stu­dent, meets a Ger­man busi­ness­man at a Greek din­er on Queens Boule­vard. Claire Seltzer of Great Neck has the hon­ey­moon from hell in Paris. Rebec­ca, a spunky eighth grad­er, is in love with Mr. Miller, her math teacher. Sarah Rein­hardt, the wife of a celebri­ty doc­tor liv­ing in Cen­tral Park West, finds her­self in a com­pli­cat­ed love tri­an­gle. Rachel Rosensweig awak­ens one morn­ing to find that her hus­band of thir­ty years, a Colum­bia pro­fes­sor, has become a dan­ger­ous rad­i­cal. The char­ac­ters of this unfor­get­table col­lec­tion inhab­it the gold­en era of the post­war, pre-pan­dem­ic world. Age-old pow­er strug­gles — between lovers, between friends, between par­ents and chil­dren— are illu­mi­nat­ed and ana­lyzed. Heart­break­ing […]

Philip Terman’s books of poetry include The Whole Mishpocha: New and Selected Jewish Poems, 1998-2023, My Blossoming Everything (Saddle Road Press, 2024), Our Portion: New and Selected Poems (Autumn House, 2015), The Torah Garden (Autumn House, 2011) and Rabbis of the Air (Autumn House, 2007) and, as co-translator, Tango Beneatha Narrow Ceiling: The Selected poems of Riad Saleh Hussein (Bitter Oleander, 2021). His poems and essays have appeared in many journals and including Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Tikkun, The Georgia Review and Poetry International, and anthologies, including The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, 101 Poets for the Next Millennium, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Joyful Noise: An Anthology of Spiritual Literature, Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine. Retired from Clarion University, he served as co-director of the Chautauqua Writers Festival for 14 years. Currently, he directs The Bridge Literary Arts Center in Venango County, PA (https://www.bridgeliteraryartscenter.org/) and is co-curator of the Jewish Poetry Reading Series, sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Buffalo. Recipient of the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience, Terman conducts poetry workshops and coaches writing hither and yon. He has collaborated with composers, visual artists, and he performs […]

Dr. Nora Gold is the prize-win­ning author of five books and the founder and edi­tor of the pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary jour­nal Jew­ish Fic​tion​.net. Her books have won both The Cana­di­an Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Award and The Vine Cana­di­an Jew­ish Book Award, and her writ­ing has been praised by Alice Munro, Cyn­thia Ozick, and Dara Horn. Title: In Sick­ness and in Health / Yom Kip­pur in a Gym This new book by award-win­ning writer Nora Gold is com­posed of two novel­las: In Sick­ness and in Health and Yom Kip­pur in a Gym. In Sick­ness and in Health is an intro­spec­tive nar­ra­tive writ­ten in the sec­ond per­son. It fol­lows five days in the life of a woman named Lily, who suf­fers from an undi­ag­nosed ail­ment that leaves her bedrid­den for near­ly a week every month. When­ev­er Lily has a series of awful sick days and can’t get out of bed, her mind goes down a rab­bit hole: she assumes that her hus­band is hav­ing an affair. To express this anger, Lily learns how to say ridicu­lous curs­es and angry phras­es in oth­er lan­guages. She regur­gi­tates them in a list, momen­tar­i­ly light­en­ing the seri­ous­ness of her con­di­tion.. Because Lily’s ill­ness comes and goes reg­u­lar­ly, she describes feel­ing like two dif­fer­ent peo­ple who can­not coex­ist. Gold writes clear­ly about […]

Dr. Nora Gold is the prize-win­ning author of five books and the founder and edi­tor of the pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary jour­nal Jew­ish Fic​tion​.net. Her books have won both The Cana­di­an Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Award and The Vine Cana­di­an Jew­ish Book Award, and her writ­ing has been praised by Alice Munro, Cyn­thia Ozick, and Dara Horn. Title: Jew­ish Sto­ries Trans­lat­ed from 18 Languages  Read­ers who are tempt­ed by slim vol­umes of short sto­ries will take great plea­sure in 18: Jew­ish Sto­ries Trans­lat­ed from 18 Lan­guages. Edit­ed by Nora Gold, the book deliv­ers on its promise to share beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed fic­tion that trans­ports read­ers across the globe in fif­teen min­utes or few­er. Instead of try­ing to answer the age-old ques­tion, ​“What makes a Jew­ish sto­ry a Jew­ish sto­ry?,” the col­lec­tion allows the diverse sto­ries and voic­es of the authors to take cen­ter stage. Cer­tain­ly Jew­ish hol­i­days, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and insti­tu­tions, impor­tant his­tor­i­cal events, and anti­semitism appear as threads through­out the book, but they serve more as an orga­niz­ing and the­mat­ic tool than as a state­ment about the Jew­ish canon. These short sto­ries don’t pro­vide escape from cur­rent events. If any­thing, the inten­si­ty of our moment only height­ens the com­plex­i­ty and nuances of these works. The result is that although these sto­ries can be read in just […]

Rick Falkowski has been involved in all aspects of WNY entertainment during the past 55 years. He is the founder of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame and Buffalo Music Awards, former publisher of Buffalo Backstage Magazine, entertainment coordinator of Tonawanda's Gateway Harbor Concerts, former representative of the American Society of Authors Composers & Publishers (ASCAP) and a Time Warner retiree. He presents classes on the History of Buffalo Music & Entertainment and Buffalo History at libraries, community centers, schools, senior living centers and for various organizations. In addition, Rick is the author of History of Buffalo Music & Entertainment (2017) and Profiles Volume I: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo & WNY – the 1800s (2019). His latest book, Profiles Volume II: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo and WNY – the Early 1900s, was published in November 2021. Book: Profiles Volume II: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo & WNY – the Early 1900s profiles 75 people that contributed to industry, business, politics, law, communications, sports, entertainment, and culture in Western New York during the early 1900s (1900 to 1950). The book differs from Volume I: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo & WNY - the 1800s as […]