The Siegal Lifelong Learning Program will host visiting author Omer Friedlander for a conversation titled “The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land” Thursday, Jan. 12, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Landmark Centre Building (25700 Science Park Dr.).
About the talk
A divorced con artist and his daughter sell empty bottles of “holy air” to tourists. A boy climbs steel cranes while imagining the bravery of a Polish-Jewish dancer during the Holocaust. An Israeli volunteer at a West Bank checkpoint mourns the death of her son, a soldier killed in Gaza. These are some of the people that Omer Friedlander brings to life in his debut short story collection, The Man who Sold Air in the Holy Land. Born in Jerusalem, Friedlander grew up in Tel Aviv, studied in England and the United States and currently lives in New York. Friedlander’s conversation will address storytelling, the blurry lines between fairy tale, fact and fiction, and writing fiction about Israel in English.
This program is part of “Israel at 75: Untold Stories,” a special 2023 series hosted by the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program. This lecture is supported by the Herbert and Marianna Luxenberg Siegal College Israel Lecture Fund of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and is offered in partnership with the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.
Jewish studies programming is supported by the Fund for the Jewish Future of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and The Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies Educational Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.
This event is free and open to the community.