CALL HER BLESSED: Biography/Memoir
473 pages with over 160 original photographs and illustrations.
The inspiring life of Lara Moskovitz Berkovitz who through courage, stamina, wisdom and love became a fully realized woman before there was such a thing as "feminism." The story tells how she grew in strength and understanding as she survived heartbreak and terrible loss to make her life one of rich fulfillment.
The author says about this work:
From early childhood I wanted to know about my mother's life. "Tell me about when you were a little girl" was my open sesame to a whole wonderful world.
As I grew older, I heard more and more of the chapters that filled the book inside her, and the people she spoke about took on substance -- as if I, myself, had known them in a different time and place.
One day three or four years before she died, my mother said to me, "Why don't you write my story? It's very interesting." When I answered that I couldn't write her story, only she could, she sat down and began to write. A week or so later, she showed me a sheaf of 67 pages. Other than to ask a few questions, I did nothing. After her death, I was too full of the pain of loss to open the manila envelope that contained her angular writing. The manuscript sat in a drawer gathering importance and waited.
Though I was filled with her stories that supplied me with pictures and sounds, places and people, thirteen years would pass before I was able to begin to write her story. In her writing, she indicated only sketchily the events that caused her great suffering. I would fill in the gaps, she knew.
Lara Moskovitz wrote in her memoir:
My Father was in the Catle Business he made a poor living but My Mother never complained they lived pecefully although My Mother was diferent from my Father he liked to sing & Drink Wine & Dance she didnt even bother with the neighbors my Father used to do what he wanted & she did what she wanted they never argued about anything, they had tree Sons before I was born naturally they were happy to have a girl...
HALF LIFE
BERCU, THE HUSBAND OF LARA IN "CALL HER BLESSED," REFLECTS ON HIS LIFE AFTER HER DEATH.
PLAYS:
YANKEL IN AMERICA
Reading at The Lambs Club December 2005
Based on material from GLIMPSES OF SOUTHERN JEWISH ROOTS AND CALL HER BLESSED
MARIE THERESE
Marie Therese (Die Marschallin) has not seen her younger lover, Octavian, nor his young wife, Sophie, since she sent him away 10 years earlier fearing he would eventually leave her. She was 31, Octavian and Sophie were both 17. When they reunite, his unquenched love for her tempts her to resume her affair with him, but memory is overwhelmed by new and wholly unsuspected feelings.
THE TORTOISE AND THE YARROW
Confucius narrates the conflict between the SHANG and the CHOU dynasties in ancient China leading to the I CHING. As he studies the history, the events he describes come to life on the stage.
