Jews have lived and worked in the Wood River Valley since at least 1881. In the valley’s earliest days, they served as miners, merchants, and elected officials, contributing proudly to the growing region at the same time as they experienced the unique challenges that accompanied being Jewish on the American frontier. As the valley evolved over the century that followed, its Jewish residents evolved with it, becoming sheep ranchers and skiers and, in 1983, formally establishing the Wood River Jewish Community (WRJC) as a congregation of their own. Today, the WRJC is constructing a synagogue, which will become the first in central Idaho when it opens—a testament both to the spirit of the region and the strength of the Jewish community that has called it home for more than 140 years.

Register to save your seat. This program will also be live streamed and available to watch later on the Library’s Vimeo. Click here to watch online.

Join The Community Library and the WRJC for an evening exploring the Jewish history of the Wood River Valley with Ari Goldstein, who has researched and written about the subject extensively. Goldstein worked for three years at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, first as a project manager and then as the senior producer of the museum’s public programs. Ari has served as a Glass Leadership Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League and a Conference Committee Member for the Council of American Jewish Museums. He has a bachelor’s degree in Government and Jewish Civilization from Georgetown University.

Image: Friedman family stores on Hailey’s Main Street in the 1950s, courtesy of the Blaine County Historical Museum.

 

Diane Raptosh’s Hand Signs from Eternity’s Yurt explores civic unease in a series of 22 American sonnets—unrhymed 14-lined poems. Characterized by a sense of informed resistance and revolutionary compassion, the poems seek a “conscious recoupling of feeling / with thought” in the hopes that empathy might birth a new strain of democracy.

Join us as Raptosh discusses the joys of reading and writing poetry and the role of the imagination in an imperiled democracy. She will discuss poetry as one of our most underused resources for reimagining self and society. She’ll share some of her most recent work with us and will invite your questions. A book signing will follow.

This event will be held outdoors on the Library’s Donaldson Robb Family Lawn on 4th Street. No registration is required. Bring your chair or blanket! (In case of inclement weather, the event will move indoors to the Lecture Hall.)

Diane Raptosh‘s American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press), was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award in poetry. A native Idahoan and the recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she served as the Boise Poet Laureate (2013) as well as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013-2016). In 2018 she won the Idaho Governor’s Arts Award in Excellence. She teaches literature and creative writing and co-directs the program in Criminal Justice/Prison Studies at the College of Idaho. Her seventh collection, Run: A Verse-History of Victoria Woodhull, was published by Etruscan 2021. Her newest chapbook, Hand Signs from Eternity’s Yurt, was published in June 2022 (Kelsay Books).

Sawtooth National Recreation Area

Representatives from the SNRA will discuss their Outfitter and Guide Management Plan. 

50 Years of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area

Join us for a panel conversation on the history and future of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA), 756,000 acres of central Idaho that includes the Sawtooth Wilderness, Cecil D. Andrus-White Clouds Wilderness, and the Hemingway-Boulders Wilderness areas. The SNRA was established on August 22, 1972, and we are taking this moment to recognize its impact on our community as we step into the next 50 years.

Panelists will include Kathryn Grohusky, Executive Director of the Sawtooth Society; Lin Gray, Executive Director of the Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Association; Kirk Flannigan, Area Ranger at the SNRA Headquarters north of Ketchum; and Paul Ries, former SNRA Area Ranger.

This program will be outdoors. Bring a camp chair or blanket and join us! The event will also be livestreamed on Vimeo and available to view later. Click here to watch online.

The 2022 Community Speaker Series presented by The Community Library and the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference invites all to join for three free lectures in Ketchum’s Forest Service Park.

More here.

with Dr. Scott Rozelle

Join us for the annual Judith and Marshall Meyer Lecture on China with Dr. Scott Rozelle.

China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor. Most of these workers have never been to high school. While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, employment in manufacturing and construction is now falling. Drawing on national datasets and the author’s own surveys, the talk will show that the labor force’s low levels of human capital is making it impossible for many unable to find work in the formal workplace. The presentation also will demonstrate that the labor market is now experiencing a reversal in the unskilled wage which could portend the start of economy-wide polarization. Coupled with low levels of social protection, the fact that around 900 million people in China are low income means that the nation’s strategy to stimulate demand may be challenging.

Register to join us in person, or watch live or later on Vimeo. Click here to watch online. A book signing with Iconoclast Books will follow the presentation.

Scott Rozelle holds the Helen Farnsworth Endowed Professorship at Stanford University and is Senior Fellow in the Food Security and Environment Program and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. He is also the author, with Natalie Hell, of Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise. His research focuses on agricultural economics, development economics and the economics of poverty—with an emphasis on the economics of education, health and early childhood development (ECD). Rozelle is the co-founder aand co-director of the newest Center at Stanford University, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI). He also is the founder and director of one of SCCEI’s main initiatives, the Rural Education Action Project (REAP), an organization at Stanford University that seeks to evaluate China’s new education, health and ECD programs and have an impact on policy. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program of nearly 40 years in which he has close working ties with Chinese collaborators and policy makers.