Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust Once Removed by Marsha Lederman
4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023
at Congregation Beth Israel
Tickets by donation. Pre-registration required.
Village Books, Congregation Beth Israel and the Ray Wolpow Institute are coming together for a very special author presentation by Marsha Lederman about her complex, emotional memoir, Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust Once Removed.Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir by award-winning journalist Marsha Lederman that delves into her parents’ Holocaust stories in the wake of her own divorce, investigating how trauma migrates through 
generations with empathy, humor, and resilience. Marsha was five when a simple question led to a horrifying answer. Sitting in her kitchen, she asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents. Her mother told her the truth: the Holocaust. Decades later, her parents dead and herself a mother to a young son, Marsha begins to wonder how much history has shaped her own life. Reeling in the wake of a divorce, she craves her parents’ help. But in their absence, she is gripped by a need to understand the trauma they suffered, and she begins her own journey into the past to tell her family’s stories of loss and resilience. Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir of Holocaust survival, intergenerational trauma, divorce, and discovery that will guide readers through several lifetimes of monumental change.
generations with empathy, humor, and resilience. Marsha was five when a simple question led to a horrifying answer. Sitting in her kitchen, she asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents. Her mother told her the truth: the Holocaust. Decades later, her parents dead and herself a mother to a young son, Marsha begins to wonder how much history has shaped her own life. Reeling in the wake of a divorce, she craves her parents’ help. But in their absence, she is gripped by a need to understand the trauma they suffered, and she begins her own journey into the past to tell her family’s stories of loss and resilience. Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir of Holocaust survival, intergenerational trauma, divorce, and discovery that will guide readers through several lifetimes of monumental change.Marsha Lederman is the Western Arts Correspondent for the Globe and Mail. Before joining the Globe, Marsha worked for CBC Radio, mostly in Toronto, where she held a variety of positions, including National Arts Reporter. Marsha also worked in commercial radio as a reporter, newscaster and talk show host. Born in Toronto, she now lives in Vancouver.
About Pete Rushefsky: Pete is a leading performer, composer and teacher of the tsimbl (cimbalom), the traditional hammered dulcimer of klezmer music. He serves as executive director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, which has worked to preserve and present immigrant performing arts traditions in New York City since 1968. He has performed internationally at major venues and festivals such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Town Hall and Symphony Space, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’s Cité de la Musique, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Krakow’s Jewish Culture Festival, Vienna’s KlezMore Festival, Fürth’s (Germany) International Klezmer Festival and Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival. He has concertized and recorded with classical violinist Itzhak Perlman and with many of Jewish music’s leading performers, including Klezmatics fiddler Lisa Gutkin, Steven Greenman, Joel Rubin, Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgott, Andy Statman, Klezmer Conservatory Band, Alicia Svigals, Michael Alpert, Adrianne Greenbaum, Alan Bern and Jake Shulman-Ment.
