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  A FREE, NON-TICKETED EVENT "I am the keeper of my family's stories. I am the guardian of its honor. I am the defender of its traditions. As the first-born son of a Kurdish father, these, they tell me, are my duties. And yet even before my birth I resisted." So begins Ariel Sabar's true tale of a father and his American-born son, and the two worlds that kept them apart and finally brought them together: ancient Iraq and modern America. In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born. Yona's son Ariel grew up in L.A., where Yona had become an esteemed professor, dedicating his career to preserving his people’s traditions. Ariel wanted nothing to do with his fathers strange immigrant heritage...until he had a son of his own. Ariel Sabar brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, discovering his family’s place in the sweeping saga of Middle-Eastern history. This powerful book is an improbable story of tolerance and hope set in what today is at the very center of the world’s attention. Ariel Sabar is an award-winning former staff writer for The Baltimore Sun and The Providence (RI) Journal, whose work has also appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Mother Jones. Co-sponsored by Congregation Beth Israel