Sensational Sundays: "Still" Reading and Book Signing.

Join us for a reading and book signing of "Still" by co-author Rebecca Bender. Without revealing all of the stories uncovered, "Still" is there when the building anti-Semitism against Jews in czarist Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has tangible and tragic effects on Jews, including the Benderskys, living in Odessa. "Still" is present with the family's Jewish immigrant first-time farmer forefathers and foremothers in Ashley, North Dakota, living among mostly German-Russian neighbors in the early 1900s – changing common perceptions regarding the types of occupations Jews engage in. "Still" witnesses the lives of another generation of the Benders during the Depression – the only Jews in Eureka, South Dakota, running the town general store. "Still" appears as some family members move to Minneapolis – known as the anti-Semitic “capital” of the United States in the 1930s and 40s. "Still follows co-author Kenneth Bender, one of the family’s Jewish volunteers for World War II from 1940-1946. "Still" is also about Rebecca's life, growing up with her family in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, in the 1960s and 1970s, (facing the challenges of assimilation and navigating what it means to lead a Jewish life), and her son Lincoln's life, growing up in Minnesota and beyond. Much of the basis for "Still" is never before compiled manuscripts, family histories, contemporaneous news reports, taped interviews, ship manifests, census records, land deeds and patents, letters, military records, and oral histories. "Still" provides a clear window into the life of a Jewish family over 150 years, showing the continuation of faith despite challenges. “It’s not the places you’ve been that matter, but what you bring with you along the way.”