Butler library program series hopes to share Jewish experiences
Various groups hope to bring people together and make a positive impact in Butler by sharing Jewish stories, culture, archives and extensive local history.
The Butler Area Public Library is hosting several events in coming months that highlight Jewish experiences in Butler County and beyond. Those helping to organize the program, called “Grounded in Community: Jewish Stories from Western PA,” hope it will contribute to the efforts to strengthen relationships between communities.
“We really hope people will start to recognize that we have a very diverse region and it’s OK to talk to other people who are of a different culture, get to know that culture,” said Anita Bowser, library information services manager. “We’re all people. We want to build relationships, help people have conversations who are maybe not in their typical friendship group or don’t always engage with.”
Groups involved include the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives, which was founded in 1988 to collect and preserve documentation of the Jewish experience in Western Pennsylvania to make those materials available to the public.
The first event on Thursday, March 26, is titled “Butler’s Jews and their neighbors.” Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish Archives, said it will look at interactions between Jews and non-Jews in Butler over the last 170 years, drawing from archival records on display that have not been widely looked at.
According to the program, Jewish people have been living in Butler County continuously since 1858. The program will introduce attendees to well-known and lesser-known stories from the history of Butler County’s Jewish communities.
On April 29, the library will host “Lodz to Pittsburgh: A Holocaust Survival Story.” Lee Kikel, daughter of Holocaust survivor Melvin Goldman, will share the story of her father’s prewar childhood, survival in the Lodz ghetto and concentration camps, his recovery and life in Pittsburgh after World War II.
“The deeper we get into the 21st century, there are fewer and fewer survivors. We’ve seen children have taken up the cause of telling their stories,” Lidji said. “Lee’s father has a fascinating story of escaping Poland and Auschwitz during war and he secretly recorded oral histories over the years that Lee found and turned into a book.”
On May 20, community members can hear from members of REACH, a speakers bureau of survivors and family members who lost loved ones in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.
Local history, event organizers said, is more immediate to people and such stories might be better known.
“From a bigger picture, we live in country with a lot of different kinds of people. I personally find the more I know about other groups, the better I’m able to move through the world. I have more opportunities to connect with people and understand people,” Lidji said.
In a world where Jewish communities must deal with antisemitism, including here in Western Pennsylvania, Lidji said his experience traveling around places like Butler County makes him hopeful, because of how many non-Jewish people care. Learning about Jewish stories and experiences, he said, is a great first step in that direction.
“At a time when the story is nobody knows how to get along, I find when able to interact with others, people are able to get along really well,” Lidji said.
In addition to these events, the Rauh Jewish Archives has led the creation of an exhibit at the Butler Area Public Library about Jewish life in Butler County, which will be up through the end of May.
The program stems from a larger initiative at the library called “Between Two Worlds.” It features a community book club, facilitated by Bowser, on three books initially written in Yiddish and translated into English.
“I’ve realized over the years that a lot of people don’t know very much about Jewish people. People don’t know about the rich, Jewish history in and throughout Butler County. They may see antisemitism in the news, but don’t know how it’s impacting Jewish people in Butler and Western PA,” said Noah Schoen of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. “We really wanted to create program for people to connect with Jewish stories and to learn.”
