Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival Program

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

With Author Richard Hurowitz, In the Garden of the Righteous

7:00 PM over Zoom

Moderated by Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, CEO, Zekelman Holocaust Center

Sponsored By

The Second World War took the lives of more than fifty million, more than six million exterminated through crimes of such enormity, a new name to describe the horror was coined: the Holocaust. Yet amid such darkness there were glimmers of light. In the Garden of the Righteous chronicles extraordinary acts at a time when the moral choices were stark, the threat immense, and the passive apathy of millions predominated. Deeply researched and astonishingly moving, it focuses on ten remarkable stories, including that of the circus ringmaster Adolf Althoff and his wife Maria, the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Italian cycling champion Gino Bartali, the Polish social worker Irena Sendler, and the Japanese spy Chinue Sugihara, who provided hiding places, participated in underground networks, refused to betray their neighbors, and secured safe passage. They repeatedly defied authorities and risked their lives, their livelihoods, and their families to save the helpless and the persecuted. In the Garden of the Righteous is a testament to their kindness and courage.

Richard Hurowitz is a writer and the founder and pub­lish­er of the Octa­vian Report. His writ­ing has appeared in the New York Times, Finan­cial Times, Wall Street Jour­nal, Times (UK), Los Ange­les Times, Time, His­to­ry Today and the Jerusalem Post, among oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. Richard serves on the governing board of the Yale University Art Gallery and is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was a co-founder and president of the Renew Democracy Initiative, an organization dedicated to defending liberal democracy.  He received his BA in history from Yale University, graduating in three years, magna cum laude and with distinction and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta. He earned a JD from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the editor-in-chief of the Columbia/VLA Journal of Law & the Arts.