Novelist Moriel Rothman-Zecher will read from and discuss his most recent novel, Before All the World (which was reviewed on Evolve by Dr. Anna Beresin). The novel is an original exploration of two Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe after the 1919 pogroms in Ukraine that brings us close to their experiences of love, loss and the transition from Yiddish to American culture.
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About Moriel Rothman-Zecher
Moriel Rothman-Zecher is the author of the novels Before All the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which was named an NPR Best Book of 2022, and Sadness Is a White Bird (Atria Books / Simon and Schuster), for which he received the National Book Foundation’s ‘5 Under 35’ Honor, and which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the winner of the Ohioana Book Award, a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.
His poems and essays have been published or are forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Barrelhouse, Colorado Review, The Common, Nashville Review, The New York Times, The Paris Review’s Daily, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere.
Moriel is the recipient of two MacDowell Fellowships for Literature (2017 & 2020), a Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellowship for Yiddish Cultural Studies (2018-2019), and holds an MFA in Poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars, where he was the recipient of a Donald Hall Scholarship for Poets (2021-2023).
Moriel teaches creative writing at Swarthmore College, where he is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English.
About Evolve
Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations is an initiative of Reconstructing Judaism. We seek to promote the ongoing evolution of the Jewish community by launching collective, communal conversations about the urgent issues of our day. To that end, Evolve brings multiple voices together to listen to one another’s point of view and to interact respectfully. In an era when it has become ever more difficult to remain open to viewpoints that differ from our own, Evolve cultivates covenantal conversations even when we disagree. In this way, we hope to enhance the ongoing evolution of Jewish civilization.
Learn more on our Evolve website.
Evolve does not endorse every viewpoint presented on its platform. Its goal is to cultivate groundbreaking, constructive, respectful conversations about urgent issues of concern. Evolve makes space for a wide range of viewpoints and seeks to support constructive debate while abiding by the values of tzelem Elohim (regarding and treating all people as created in the divine image), kavod (respect), redifat shalom (pursuing peace) and makhloket leshem shamayim (disagreements for the sake of heaven).
