By the Waters of Paradise

Discussion with Author Clare Kinburg

By the Waters of Paradise: An American Story of Racism and Rupture in a Jewish Family

Monday, January 19 at 1 PM

This event will be held virtually. A Zoom link will be sent out prior to the event.

In 2016, Clare Kinberg finds the death certificate of her estranged Aunt Rose. The discovery unearths a rupture in her family that had been silenced for decades. Rose, a Jewish woman, had married a Black man named Zebedee in the early 20th century. In response, her family cut Rose off to preserve their status and safety within a white-dominated society.

Kinberg reconstructs the lives of Rose and Zebedee, placing their personal romance against the backdrop of a shifting racial landscape, antisemitism and “whiteness”, and the rejection of Rose’s marriage as a survival mechanism to assimilate.

Kinberg explores how the family’s choice to shun Rose was a trauma passed down through generations, affecting her own upbringing and family’s understanding of their Jewishness.