Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland
Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland Present
Freighted Legacies (Dziedzictwa obarczone): The Culture and History of Jewish Interactions in Poland
"[w]e learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are" (Leszek Kolakowski)
Freighted Legacies Webinar
Letters to My Father
Excavating a Jewish Identity in Poland and Belarus
September 18, 2022
WATCH THIS WEBINAR ON YOUTUBE
WATCH THIS WEBINAR ON YOUTUBE
Join Kathleen A. Balgley in a discussion of just released Letters to My Father: Excavating a Jewish Identity in Poland and Belarus. Kathleen Balgley’s memoir begins with her childhood discovery of her father’s hidden Jewish identity. Seeking to learn more about her own suppressed Jewishness, she immerses herself in the historically terrorized heart of wartime Europe and the epicenter of Jewish suffering by accepting a Fulbright to communist Poland just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Balgley visits the archives of her father’s birthplace formerly in Poland (Brzesc), now Brest, Belarus and discovers the lives (and deaths) of her relatives. Throughout the journey, bashert (the Yiddish term for “destiny”) uncannily guides her to uncover deeply hidden stories. Her father, who had said he would not travel to Poland to visit, changes his mind after reading letters from his daughter. Touring the country together, father and daughter heal the rift between them.
SUPPORTING CONTENT
We are pleased to share an advanced copy (Do Not Circulate) of a critical reference to Kathleen Balgley’s Letters to My Father. The Polish translation of the book will be forthcoming. We know that earlier readers of Letters to My Father will find this contextualization helpful. New readers will find this a vital essay to frame their reading.
The following reference is dated August 2025:
SUPPORTING CONTENT
“A profound ingathering of memory...Many American writers pursued family roots none done with so such determination.” (Dr. Dominika Ferens)
WATCH THIS WEBINAR ON YOUTUBE
WEBINAR PANELISTS
- Louise Steinman is a writer, artist and literary curator, The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation
- Gelya Frank is an anthropologist, author, Venus on Wheels
- Dominika Ferens is an associate professor at the Institute of English Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland, where she teaches American literature. Professor Ferens will be a Fulbright scholar 2022-2023 at UC Irvine.
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