Ken Blady

Website : http://www.kenblady.com
Residence : Berkeley, CA

Biographical information

Educator, writer, and Yiddish translator, Ken Blady is the author of "Jewish Communities in Exotic Places," "The Jewish Boxers' Hall of Fame," and translator of "The Journeys of David Toback." A popular lecturer on a variety of Jewish themes at colleges, synagogues, elder hostels, and adult educational institutions, Ken has been featured on a number of radio and T.V. talk shows, most recently on The History Channel documentary, "Operation Magic Carpet."

Discussion topics

• Jewish Communities in Exotic Places:
  From Afghanistan to Yemen
  This lecture/slide/video presentation deals with seventeen Mizrachi (Eastern or Oriental) Jewish communities around the world. These are Jewish communities, situated in remote places in Africa and Asia, whose mores and folkways were in many ways at great variance with those of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewry. Some topics we will be dealing with in this presentation: The Queen of Sheba's Lost Children: The Beta Israel of Ethiopia; Pariahs Among Ayatollahs: The Jew as Outcast in Shiite Iran; Samson Warriors, Bar Kochba's Heirs: The Mountain Jewish "Cossacks" of Daghestan, Chechnya and Azerbaijan; A Remedy for the Evil Eye: Folk Beliefs of the Jews of Afghanistan and Central Asia; From the Land of Frankincense and Myrrh: The Jewish Bedouin of South Yemen
• The World of Our Great-Great-Grandparents:
  The Early History of Eastern European Jewry (1000-1800 CE)
  Over the past thousand years Eastern Europe has been both a harbor of refuge and a scene of horror for Jews. Here Jewish culture rose to some of its greatest glories; here Jewish society suffered some of its greatest tragedies. In this lecture we deal with the following themes: early migrations into Eastern Europe; Poland: an asylum for Jews; Arthur Koestler's theory of a Khazar origin of Eastern European Jewry; the evolution of the Yiddish language; the culture of the shtetl; the Chmielnitzsky pogroms; the rise of Chassidism; the Pale of Settlement.
• From Bible to Belter:
  The Jewish Boxers' Hall of Fame
  Between 1900 and 1940 alone there were some 27 Jewish world champions and title claimants, some still considered the greatest of their class: Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom, Abe Attell, Jackie Fields. This lecture/slide/video presentation will take you through the fascinating history of the great Jewish pugilists, from the English bare-knuckle champion Daniel Mendoza in the late 18th century all the way up to Fabrice Benichou and Dana Rosenblatt in the 1990s.

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