Richard Cahan Speaks at Emanuel Congregation on the Evening of December 5

Richard Cahan, the co-author of Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War Two will be speaking at Emanuel Congregation, 5959 N. Sheridan Road on Wednesday evening, December 5, at 7:00 pm. This is a free community event and open to the public.
As the authors state “in the spring of 1942, the United States rounded up 109,000 residents of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast and sent them to detention centers for the duration of the Second World War. Amazingly, the government hired famed photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and others to document the expulsion—–from assembling Japanese Americans at racetracks to confining them in ten camps spread across the country. Their photographs give an emotional and unflinching portrait of a nation concerned more about security than human rights. These photographs are more important now than ever.”
Please rsvp for the event to richardreeder34@gmail.com. There is a small parking lot with free parking adjacent to the synagogue. Paid parking is available at the Malibu just north of the synagogue.

“The Lake on Fire” is Highly Recommended

Rosellen Brown’s new novel, The Lake on Fire, superbly depicts the class and cultural tensions that were pervasive in Chicago just before, during and slightly after the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Worker discontent in the city was still simmering in the aftermath of the deadly clashes of the Battle of the Viaduct in 1877 and the Haymarket Affair of 1886. Economic conditions and labor strife were worsening because of the Panic of 1893, which soon led to a depression.
Ms. Brown embodies these tensions magnificently in the characters of Chaya-Libbe Shaderowsky and her younger brother Asher, and Gregory Stillman and his brother Ned. Chaya and Asher were Jews whose poor family had left Eastern Europe for a better life in America. Gregory and Ned were born with “a silver spoon in their mouths” and were part of Chicago’s economic and cultural elite. Yet the author brilliantly weaves a narrative spiced with romance, idealism, greed and violence where these four characters’ lives are inextricably connected with each other.
The teeming Maxwell Street Market surrounded by tenements and sweat shops come alive in this book. Asher’s gutsy escapades on the Midway during the Fair keep the reader amazed and surprised. The inclusion of historical personages in the story, especially Jane Addams, is truly a delight. The Lake on Fire is definitely a must read for any lover of Chicago historical fiction.