Please join us Thursday, December 3, for the 2009 Yachad program. The speaker this year is Andrew Berns, who spoke a year ago on Jewish physicians in renaissance Europe at a JCF brunch.

His topic this year is “A Golden Age for the Ages: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Spain.” He’ll be speaking about what historians call convivencia, “living together” – the coexistence of Jews with Muslims and Christians in Spain before 1492. He notes that even popular novels have taken inspiration from medieval Spain: “Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book, which appeared last year, sketched an endearing portrait of Jews living among Muslims and Christians in the fifteenth century.  In fact the Jewish communities of 10th- to 15th-century Spain produced court poets who wrote in elegant classical Arabic, generals who led Muslim armies into battle, and statesmen who played major roles in medieval Europe’s political events.”

The lecture is at 7:30 PM at Congregation Shomray Hadath, 1008 West Water Street; a reception follows. It’s free, but if you can come, please let us know through email to jcf@stny.rr.com, or by phone to (607) 734-8122.