Join celebrated artist, author, historian Molly Crabapple discuss her new book "Here Where We Live Is Our Country" in Detroit & Ann Arbor

Award-winning artist, writer, historian Molly Crabapple will discuss her NY Times Best Selling book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund in Detroit on September 3 at 7 pm and and Ann Arbor on Sept 4 at 3 pm. The events are co-sponsored by Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) and Detroit Jews for Justice (DJJ).

The Detroit event will be held at University of Detroit-Mercy (the precise location and parking directions will be shared when you RSVP) and Ann Arbor location TBA.

Tickets: Please donate $18 or what you can afford to help us offset costs. If you join Jewish Voice for Peace at jvp.org/DetroitDonate, your admission is free—but please sign up to reserve your space! No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

About Molly and the Bund:

“She has a resume that would make anyone’s head spin. Her art is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and her journalistic output has covered Occupy Wall Street, Syrian rebels, and Guantanamo Bay. She’s won two Emmys and was nominated for a National Book Award,” states writer Ruby Elliott Zuckerman, whose great-grandfather was also a Bundist, in the Forward.The Jewish Labor Bund was a socialist, secular, anti-Zionist organization formed in pre-1900s Eastern Europe. They organized for workers’ rights in Tsarist Russia and Poland, battled against pogroms, and believed in do’ikayt, or “hereness,” a belief that Jews should fight for their rights in their own communities. They were extremely active in the resistance to the Nazis and were organizers of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as forceful political party prior to the Holocaust.

Crabapple wrote that the history of the Bund is “a candle to illuminate the tumultuous present. Despite war, state collapse, and genocidal repression, the Bund fought for the very multiracial, democratic socialism that a new generation now champions at the ballot box. … Their ideas are still vital today.”

JVP and DJJ are bringing Crabapple to town as the two organizations are passionate about their commitment to embracing not only our local community but collective liberation and our Jewishness, especially in these trying times, fraught with war, racism, hatred and inequality.

Bundists, using Yiddish to unite Eastern European Jews, embarked on the fight for justice and freedom at home in Eastern Europe, and rejected the Zionist call to emigrate to Palestine.

Crabapple’s curiosity of the Bund grew out of her artist great-grandfather Samuel Rothbart’s Bundist history. Sam grew up in the Russian empire in a small town besieged by Cossacks, cholera and countless other torments, and the revolutionary Bund worked to improve all peoples’ lives, not just Jews.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country will be available for sale at the events and refreshments will be served during the book signings.

Description supplied by the event organiser.