JCC MetroWest presents, Jennifer Rosner, “Once We Were Home”

Among the tragedies of WWII were the Jewish children separated from their families, given new names, and instructed to follow new religions. Rosner follows The Yellow Bird Sings (2020), with this complex tale about fear, survival, and what it means to be a family, as four children grapple with their identities during and after the war. Roger, taken to a French convent and baptized into Catholicism, is smuggled away to Spain when his relatives petition for his return. Their mother sends seven-year-old Mira and her three-year-old brother, Daniel, away from the Jewish ghetto to the relative safety of a childless couple in the Polish countryside, who tell prying neighbors the children are their niece and nephew. And in the late 1960s, Renata, a German-born Brit whose mother insisted they not mention their homeland, begins work on an archaeological dig in Jerusalem. All Rosner’s uprooted characters eventually come to Israel, seeking a path to the future while struggling with the losses of the past. (Booklist)

Book group discussion at 12:00 PM
Author presentation at 1:00 PM

Book Group discussion and conversation with the author will be available either in person or on Zoom for participants; author will present via Zoom.

FREE

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: