Fiction reading at Oregon Jewish Museum, 3/30, 7:30 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 5, 2009 Contact: Friderike Heuer
(503) 226-3600
Friderike@ojm.org
The Oregon Jewish Museum
invites you to join us for a literary evening

Bearing the Body

A Reading by Ehud Havazelet



Ehud Havazelet will read from his novel "Bearing the Body." The author's literary
achievements earned him the 2007 Edward Lewis Wallant Award, an award that
recognizes excellence in Jewish Literature, and the 2008 Oregon Book Award/ Ken
Kesey Award for Fiction.!!Havazelet is the award-winning author of two story
collections, What Is It Then Between Us? and Like Never Before, a New York Times notable
book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book. He has been awarded fellowships from the
Guggenheim, Whiting, Rockefeller foundations. Havazelte was the recipient of the 2007
Edward Lewis Wallant Award, an award that recognizes excellence in Jewish
Literature, and in 2008 received the Oregon Book Award/ Ken Kesey Award for
Fiction. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon and
at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Excerpts from recent reviews:

"It can hurt to be shown reality, to be told the truth. But Bearing the Body reminds you
that there's nothing like it. . . . Extraordinary."--Francine Prose, The New York Times

"An ambitious novel driven by a wonderfully talented writer's sense of history, coupled
with a deep compassion for his characters, every one of which is rendered fully and
with great wisdom."--Richard Russo

"An impressive achievement from a highly gifted writer . . . This sorrowful but beautiful
work is richly layered."--Chicago Tribune

"Beautifully, meticulously structured . . . A reader is also forced to notice, with
particular acuity, the heavy inadequacy of human relationships."--Los Angeles Times

"The characters in Bearing the Body are riveting. They try and fail, they resist and accept,
they survive and feel real."--The Oregonian
"Riveting . . . This novel, more than any I have read in decades, is a masterful meditation
on the immorality of familial silence."--The Jerusalem Post

When: Monday, March 30, 2009, 7:30p
Where: University of Oregon, 70 Couch Street, Portland, OR, 97209 Room 142

Event is Free – All are welcome
For more information please visit www.ojm.org or call: 503.266.3600

About the Oregon Jewish Museum
The Oregon Jewish Museum (OJM) is the earliest founded of two Jewish museums in
the Pacific Northwest and was created to preserve the rich cultural heritage of one of
Oregon’s earliest immigrant groups.

The Museum serves as an important repository of communal history, as steward of
artifacts and archival materials, and the narrator of the story of the Oregon Jewish
experience. OJM brings innovative exhibitions about the history, culture and art of the Jewish people to this region–enrichments that would be absent without its efforts.

The Museum maintains a library and archives and offers a variety of education programs
to youth and adults, as well as special lectures and collaborative programs with other
institutions. The artifact collection includes significant holdings of regional Jewish artists, ceremonial Judaica, and family and business collections. The archives is comprised of photographs, records and material dating from 1850 to the present, including an extensive oral history collection. It is the largest collection of the documented and visual history of the Jewish people of Oregon in existence.