Wanderers, Refugees, and the Power of a Passport

At a time when Canada is tightening its borders (and the US has effectively shut its doors to refugees), a dual art exhibition and book talk consider little known Jewish refugee histories from the Soviet Union.

LA-based immigration journalist and author of The Wanderers, Daniela Gerson, will discuss with McGill Jewish Studies chair Christopher Silver how her new book covers a pivotal Soviet passport which changed the fate of the biggest group of Jews to survive the Holocaust — and its echoes in contemporary refugee crises.

The book talk will also consider the recent opening of Seam Allowance, Rob Shostak’s art installation rooted in his grandfather’s Soviet passport and asks how memory forms and fades; how we orient ourselves within spaces and systems larger than ourselves; how stories emerge through process and form.

Registration is on a pay-what-you-can model from $3 per person. Early registration is encouraged as capacity is limited.

Copies of The Wanderers will be available for sale. Refreshments will be provided.

Daniela Gerson is an award-winning reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Public Radio International, and the Financial Times, among other outlets. An associate professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge and editor-at-large at Zócalo Public Square, she previously worked as a community engagement editor at the LA Times and as a staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has also directed programs at the intersection of civic engagement and news representation for the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School and the City University of New York’s Newmark School. Daniela co-founded Migratory Notes, an immigration newsletter, and spent more than a year reporting from Berlin as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation German Chancellor Scholar and an Arthur F. Burns Fellow. Visit Daniela’s website.

Christopher Silver is the Segal Family Associate Professor in Jewish History and Culture in the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University. His first book Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth Century North Africa was published in 2022 with Stanford University Press and was the winner of the 2023 L. Carl Brown AIMS Book Prize in North African Studies. He is the author of numerous, prize-winning articles on Jewish and North African history, the Jewish-Muslim relationship, and music, including in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Jewish Social Studies, and Hespéris-Tamuda. He is also the founder and curator of the website Gharamophone.com, a digital archive of North African records from the first half of the twentieth century

This event is presented in partnership with the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University, and Sylvan Adams YM-YMHA. This event has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.

Background Image: Soviet passport of Arthur Shostak, grandfather of Rob Shostak, detail, c. 1920s. Courtesy of the artist.