Language

Following is a video of our Center for Media and Democracy program which aided in removing the Dorothy Canfield Fisher name from a prestigious Vermont children’s book award. The name has been changed to the Vermont Golden Dome Book Awards.

In this discussion of why Dorothy Canfield Fisher's name should be removed from the Vermont Book Award, evidence is presented that the author had a direct connection with the Vermont Eugenics Survey. Judy Dow, Franco American/ Abenaki educator, artist, and writer, presents a compelling power point on the history of eugenics and documentation on the reasons to change the Dorothy Canfield Fisher book award name. Kim Chase, third generation, Franco American writer and educator, and Kathy Olwell, retired social worker and social activist, talk about how the impact of the Vermont Eugenics Survey is still pertinent and discuss the vital need for acknowledgment, education, and a chance to heal.

Vermont Book Award: vcfa.edu/vermont-book-award/about-vermont-book-award

The Lost Mural Immigrant Voices project hosts Henia Lewin at Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Henia Lewin is quite renown and she is speaking on behalf of the Lost Mural. She and the Lost Mural artist, Ben Zion Black, share an interest in the preservation of Yiddish language and literature.

Henia is a Holocaust survivor originally from Lithuania. She is a Hebrew and Yiddish instructor at the University of Vermont, a former Hillel director at UVM, and a Yiddish instructor at UMass Amherst and Hampshire College. Henia is the first Goldfarb Chair and Yiddish scholar at the National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst and a Yiddish instructor at the Jewish Community of Amherst.