Beth Seldin Dotan at the Omaha Home for Boys

On Thursday evening, March 10, I went to the Omaha Home for Boys to lead
a book discussion on the novel, The Island on Bird Street- historical
fiction written by Uri Orlev.  The relationship with the Omaha Home for
Boys came about through a wonderful volunteer for the IHE, Amber Partin
who works as the Communications Assistant at the organization.  A group
of five young men and three or four staff participated in the
discussion.  Some of the boys had just begun the book, but we had an
interesting discussion about the Holocaust, about Poland and the Warsaw
ghetto where the story line takes place.  Volunteer, Caroline Rockman
accompanied me to the book discussion and helped talk about Darfur and
the genocide that is occurring there.  Some of the boys explained that
there are Sudanese students at their schools.  We talked about the
trials and struggles these students have gone through in their life-time
in parallel to the challenges mentioned in the book by protagonist,
Alex.  I also spoke about the author, Uri Orlev and that I had been with
him personally as he visited a number of schools on the east coast a
number of years ago.

The young men at the Omaha Home for Boys hope to finish reading the book
in a few weeks and Caroline and I will return to continue the discussion
with them. They will also view the DVD film that closely follows the
story line in the book.


 - Beth Seldin Dotan