Author Series: Letty Cottin Pogrebin

“Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy” tells the sto­ry of three gen­er­a­tions of 20th-cen­tu­ry Jews for whom the desire to fit in and the fear of pub­lic humil­i­a­tion either drove their aspi­ra­tions or crushed their spir­it.

Shan­da means shame or dis­grace in Yid­dish. In her deeply engag­ing, aston­ish­ing­ly can­did mem­oir, author and activist Let­ty Cot­tin Pogre­bin expos­es the fiercely guarded lies and intri­cate cover­ups woven by her extend­ed fam­i­ly. Begin­ning with her own long suppressed secret, the sto­ry spi­rals through the hid­den lives of her par­ents and rel­a­tives—reveal­ing the truth about their ori­gins, per­son­al trau­mas, mar­i­tal mis­ery, aban­doned chil­dren, reli­gious trans­gres­sions, sex­u­al iden­ti­ty, rad­i­cal pol­i­tics, and sup­pos­ed­ly embar­rass­ing ill­ness­es.

While unmask­ing their cha­rades and dis­guis­es, Pogre­bin also show­cas­es her family’s remark­able tal­ent for rein­ven­tion in a nar­ra­tive that is touch­ing, sear­ing, and sur­pris­ing­ly universal.

Pogrebin will be interviewed by Shelley Sackett, attorney, freelance journalist and former editor of the Jewish Journal. Pogrebin will be on Zoom and projected to a live audience at the JCCNS. Zoom-only tickets are also available.