We'll have readings from three poets who will inspire us with The Jewish Experience Through Poetry!

Fran Markover: Poems about Family, the Jewish Experience, Loss, and Survival

Author Fran Markover will read some of her poems, mainly from her book, Grandfather's Mandolin, poems about family, the Jewish experience, loss, survival.

Ms Markover lives in Ithaca, NY where she works as a psychotherapist and addictions counselor.  Her poems have been included in many literary journals.

Fran has a chapbook, History's Trail (Finishing Line Press). Her book, Grandfather's Mandolin, (Passager Press) was a finalist for the Henry Morgenthau III First Poetry Book Prize. Recent awards include nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net; an American Book Fest award for Best Poetry Book in the spiritual category; 2 poetry residencies at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts; award from the Ruth Weiss foundation; finalist for Anna Davidson Rosenberg award; a Miriam Chaikin award; a finalist award from Poet's Billow; an finalist award from the journal Able Muse; honorable mention from the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition; a finalist for the MacGuffin Reader Poet Hunt 28. 

Pamela Wax

Pamela Wax is the author of Walking the Labyrinth (2022), a finalist for the Main Street Rag poetry award, and Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023). She has received a Best of the Net nomination and awards from Crosswinds, Paterson Literary Review, Poets’ Billow, Oberon, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House. Her poems have been published in dozens of literary journals including Barrow Street, Tupelo Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Chautauqua, The MacGuffin, Nimrod, and Slippery Elm, among others. An ordained rabbi, Pam offers spirituality and poetry workshops online and around the country. She lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts. 

Rabbi Mark Elber

Rabbi Mark Elber was ordained by ALEPH: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal in 2012. He is the rabbi of Temple Beth El, an independent Conservative synagogue in Fall River, MA where he shares the pulpit with his wife, Cantor Shoshana Brown. A fellow of Rabbis Without Borders and the author of The Everything Kabbalah Book, Mark is a certified teacher of Jewish meditation through Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, California, a prize winning poet (e.g. Beat Museum Poet of the Year, 2007), translator of Israeli rock songs (one of which appeared on MTV Europe), and a published songwriter having fronted his own bands in the downtown Manhattan music scene in the early 1980’s. Mark did his graduate studies in Kabbalah at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and University of Pennsylvania from which he also holds a B.A. in Philosophy. Mark is very involved in interfaith activities in the greater Fall River area. He is also the author of "The Sacred Now (Cultivating Jewish Spiritual Consciousness)." Mark was the winner of the 2022 Henry Morgenthau III Poetry Prize for his first book of poems, Headstone, which is about family, loss, Jewish past life, and beautiful elegies about his father, in particular.

This is a Zoom-only event:

More information about our Adult Ed/Hazak series.