Throughout 2026, the library will host reading groups and related programs exploring the role of literature as a springboard for conversations about religion, assimilation, identity and immigration. Through the Yiddish Book Center’s Public Libraries Program, the library will organize reading groups to discuss three books of Yiddish literature in translation, one book by a local author and a fifth book selected for its focus on class and cultural differences, and family dynamics.
Book Discussions & Events
When: Sunday, March 1 at 11AM or Monday, April 13 at 6PM
Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son
Tevye the Dairyman is a collection of Yiddish stories by Sholom Aleichem about a poor milkman in Tsarist Russia whose life is shaped by his seven daughters' marriages and the changing times.
Motl the Cantor's Son is a humorous, episodic novel about a young boy's journey from a Russian Jewish village (shtetl) to America at the turn of the 20th century.
Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916)
Sholem Aleichem, born Sholem Rabinovich, was a celebrated Yiddish writer and one of the founders of modern Yiddish literature. He is best known for his stories of characters like Tevye the Milkman, which inspired the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Originally from Ukraine, he wrote extensively on the lives of Eastern European Jews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, capturing their struggles with modernity.
Photo courtesy of the Yiddish Book Center
PBS Film Screening: Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History
When: Monday, March 23 at 6PM
Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History is a four-part series tracing the rich, complex relationship between Black and Jewish Americans — defined by solidarity and strained by division. Drawn together by racism and antisemitism, they forged civic and cultural bonds, especially during the civil rights era. The series explores both the challenges and enduring promise of that alliance.
Join us to view a series overview of this thought-provoking documentary. Reservations are required at abowser@bcfls.org or by calling Anita at 724-287-1715.
Butler's Jews and their Neighbors
When: Thursday, March 26 at 6PM
Where: Butler Area Public Library
Jewish people have been living in Butler County continuously since 1858, becoming part of the fabric of the community. This program will introduce attendees to well-known and lesser-known stories from the history of the Jewish communities of Butler County. This is the first of a three-program series highlighting stories of Jewish people in Butler County and Western Pennsylvania.
Presenter: Eric Lidji, Director of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Link to register: https://hcofpgh.org/event/butlers-jews-and-their-neighbors/
When: Sunday, April 12 at 11AM or Monday, May 18 at 6PM
A Jewish Refugee in New York
A Jewish Refugee in New York is a novel about a young woman, Rivke Zilberg, as she experiences the trauma of displacement alongside the challenge of adapting to a new country, culture, and language. The book deals with grief, assimilation, modernity, changing gender roles, and community/familial acceptance.
Kadya Molodovsky (1894-1975)
Molodowsky was a major figure in the Yiddish literary scene in Warsaw and, later, in New York and Israel. She wrote for the Yiddish press, founded and edited journals and published poetry, novels, short stories, plays, and essays. Recurrent themes in her work include the lives of Jewish women and girls, Jewish tradition in the face of modernity, Israel, and the Holocaust.
Photo courtesy of the Yiddish Book Center
The Poetry of Philip Terman
A Poetry Reading & Book Signing
When: Thursday, April 23 at 6PM
Philip Terman’s poems include The Whole Mishpocha: New and Selected Jewish Poems (Ben Yehuda Press), My Blossoming Everything (Saddle Road Press), Our Portion: New and Selected Poems and, as co-translator, Tango Beneath a Narrow Ceiling: The Selected poems of Riad Saleh Hussein. A selection of his poems, My Dear Friend Kafka, has been translated into Arabic.
His poems and essays appear in many journals and anthologies, such as Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Poetry International, The Sun, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poetry, and Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine. Terman directs The Bridge Literary Arts Center and conducts poetry workshops and coaches writing hither and yon. He’s collaborated with composers, visual artists, and performs his poetry with the jazz band Catro.
For more of Phil's work, drop by the library or visit his website.
‘Terman…seems to carry himself without skin, absorbing the particulars of the human struggle in its many dogged and eloquent forms, and recording it with the capacious empathy of a saint or mystic.” –Poetry Magazine
Łódź to Pittsburgh: A Holocaust Survival Story
When: Wednesday, April 29 at 6PM
Where: Butler Area Public Library
In middle age, Melvin Goldman recorded a series of cassette tapes telling his life story, leaving them to be found decades later after his passing. His daughter, Lee Goldman Kikel, discovered the recordings—a priceless family heirloom conveying memory and the history of a Polish Jewish family which became the basis of a 2019 Holocaust memoir. Lee’s presentation focuses on her father’s recounting: his pre-war childhood, survival of the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and a miraculous recovery while knowing most of his family perished. Lee shares how hope, tenacity, and perseverance amid major losses guided her father to become a United States citizen and start a new life in Pittsburgh.
This is the second of a three-program series highlighting stories of Jewish people in Butler County and Western Pennsylvania.
Presenter: Lee Goldman Kikel
Link to register: https://hcofpgh.org/event/save-the-date-generations-talk-by-lee-goldman-kikel/
When: Sunday, May 17 at 11AM or Monday, June 29 at 6PM
The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga
The Zelmenyaners by Moyshe Kulbak is a comical story about a Jewish family in pre-revolution Minsk struggling with the arrival of modernity under the Soviet regime. The novel humorously depicts the generational conflict between an older generation holding onto tradition and a younger generation embracing Soviet ideals secularism and electricity, all centered around their shared family courtyard.
Moyshe Kulbak (1896-1937)
Kulbak was a prominent Belarusian Jewish poet, novelist, and dramatist who was a leading figure in modernist Yiddish literature. His life and career were marked by movement between the major center of Jewish culture in Minsk, Vilna and Berlin. At the age of 41, he fell victim to the Stalinist purges targeting Yiddish intellectuals.
When: Wednesday, May 20 at 6PM
Where: Butler Area Public Library
After the Synagogue Shooting
REACH (Remember, Educate and Combat Hate), is the 10.27 Healing Partnership Speakers Bureau of survivors and family members who lost loved ones in the Oct. 27, 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. REACH speakers share their lived experience of targeted violence and connect with audiences on a personal and human level. The individuals within REACH are an invaluable source of resilience and strength.
This is the third of a three-program series highlighting stories of Jewish people in Butler County and Western Pennsylvania.
Presenter: REACH Speaker Panel
Link to register: https://hcofpgh.org/event/after-the-synagogue-shooting/
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When: Sunday, June 28 at 11AM or Monday, August 3 at 6PM
About Us
About Us is a semi-autobiographical novel by American writer and Butler native Chester Aaron. Published in 1967, it is a coming-of-age story featuring a rural Jewish family in southwestern Pennsylvania during the Great Depression and World War II. The novel is set in the fictional coal-mining town of Sundown with references to Butler, Kittanning, Pittsburgh, and other points of local interest.
Chester Aaron (1923-2019) - Local Author
A Butler native, Aaron served in World War II before working as an X-Ray technician and a garlic farmer. He participated in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp and was profoundly affected by the experience. He later attended university and became a professor at Saint Mary's College, retiring in 1997. He wrote 26 books throughout his career, including fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks and young adult novels. About Us was his first novel and a semi-autobiographical exploration of his own youth.
When: Sunday, August 2 at 11AM or Monday, Sept. 21 at 6PM
Rental House
Rental House is a 2024 novel that explores a marriage through the lens of two family vacations, highlighting themes of cultural differences, class, and family expectations. The story follows Keru and Nate, college sweethearts from vastly different backgrounds, as they navigate their marriage and their families' clashing worldviews.
Weike Wang (1989-Present)
Wang is a Chinese-American novelist and professor recognized for her minimalist prose and her exploration of the intersections between science, family, and the immigrant experience. She is the author of three novels: Chemistry (2017), Joan is Okay (2022), and Rental House (2024).
To participate in a book discussion, contact Anita at abowser@bcfls.org or 724-287-1715.