This International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma multidisciplinary webinar is held in observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Participants will present three disparate works published during the last decade, and reflect on the distinct histories, methodologies and lessons they have learned during their journeys and since their publications.
Karen Baum Gordon
A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Business School, Karen Baum Gordon co-founded Strategic Horizons, Inc., an executive coaching and management consulting firm after working as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., managing several NYC restaurants, and training as a chef in France and the U.K. She serves on the faculty of the Media Transformation Challenge Program of the Poynter Institute. A Dallas native, Karen lives with her husband and black lab in Brooklyn, NY, and also spends time in South Hero, Vermont. She is the proud mother of two sons. Karen is an active member of Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and recently served as president of the congregation.
Mikhal Dekel
Mikhal Dekel is the Stuart Z. Katz Professor of Humanities at CCNY, where she chairs the English Department and directs the Rifkind Center for the Humanities and Arts. She also serves as core fac- ulty at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity. She is the author of In The East: How My Father and a Quarter Million Polish Jews Survived the Holocaust, formerly published as Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey, as well as The Universal Jew: Modernity, Masculinity and the Zionist Moment; and the Hebrew monograph Oedipus in Kishinev. The New York Times has called Tehran Children “not simply another detail of the Holocaust, but a matter of enduring existential, psychological and moral reflection.” In addition to the Times, the book has been reviewed and featured in the New York Review of Books, the Guardian, the BBC, C-Span, TLS, and the Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications and other media. It was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize, the Chautauqua Prize and the National Jewish Book Awards and has been translated into German and Hebrew.
Michel Kichka
Michel Kichka grew up in Belgium and emigrated to Israel in 1974 at the age of 19. He studied Graphic Design at the renowned Jerusalem Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, the Academy where he teaches as professor of illustration, comics and political cartoon. He is a member of the international association “Cartooning for Peace.” He received the Israel Dosh Cartoon Award in 2008; he was decorated “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” by France Minister of Culture in 2011, the“King Leopold Order” from Belgium in 2014; and the Berheim Award by the Fondation du Judaisme Français in 2019. His first graphic novel “Second Generation-Things I did not tell my father” (Dargaud France 2012) was published in nine languages, including German and Polish. His second graphic novel “Falafel with Hot Sauce” (Dargaud, France 2018) is about his aliyah and life in Israel. He is currently working on his third graphic novel “One kilometer, four seasons” that will be published at the end of 2022. An animated film adaptation of “Second Generation” will be released in May 2022.
Married to Olivia Alfandari, they have three sons, David (45), Yonathan (40) and Elie (36) and four grand-children, Emilie (11), Nina (10), Leonard (5) and Lucianne (3).
Moderator:
Dr. Yael Danieli, Founder and Executive Director, International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma; Director, Group Project for Holocaust Survivors and their Children.
