Esther Safran Foer to discuss post-Holocaust memoir Dec. 8

Seaside Jewish Community, Lewes Public Library and Browseabout Books will present author Esther Safran Foer for a discussion of her book, “I Want You to Know We’re Still Here,” at 5 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 8, via Zoom.

The event is free but registration is required. To sign up, go to lewes.lib.de.us and click on Virtual Programs for Adults.

Well-known in the Washington, D.C. community as the 10-year executive director for synagogue and cultural institution Sixth & I, Foer decided to move into the realm of writing, joining her sons, Jonathan, Franklin and Joshua, all successful journalists and authors.

In her positive account of tracing her family roots in the Ukraine and learning family history that was lost or not transmitted to her, Foer gains a sense of her place in the world. From conversations with her mother, she learned her deceased father had a previous family prior to World War II. Her father’s suicide, she feels, was probably precipitated by keeping this loss secret after the war.

Readers of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, “Everything Is Illuminated,” will feel acquainted with the Ukrainian village Trochenbrod, which the Foer family called home and which ceased to exist under the Nazi occupation. In Esther Safran Foer’s book, she tells how she reaches out to the scattered survivors of this community and arranges for them to hold a reunion in the Ukraine where she eventually learns the details she wants her children and their descendants to know. The revelations of how the past can be recovered and how it can fill the void in one’s identity permeate the book.

Esther Safran Foer’s narrative is an event that resonates with all Americans who immigrated the the U.S. in the 20th century, whether war-related or later.

The book is available for purchase at Browseabout Bookstore in Rehoboth Beach, and includes a bookplate signed by the author.