Author of "Coalfield Jews" to Speak at UK

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 1, 2011) ― Research historian and family history coordinator at the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore, Deborah Weiner, will speak at the University of Kentucky at 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, at the W.T. Young Library Auditorium. Her lecture is titled “Insiders and Outsiders:  Jewish Communities in the Appalachian Coalfields.” 

The lecture, sponsored by the UK Jewish Studies Program, the UK Appalachian Studies Program and the UK Appalachian Center, is free and open to the public and a reception will follow.

Weiner is author of "Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History," published by the University of Illinois Press in 2006. It received the Southern Jewish Historical Society Book Prize for the most significant contribution to Southern Jewish history over a four-year period.

Weiner earned a doctorate in history from West Virginia University in 2002. Her dissertation focused on small Jewish communities in the coalfields of southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Before pursuing graduate studies, she worked in community development in her native Chicago.

For more information, contact Jeremy Popkin, director of the UK Jewish Studies Program, at popkin@uky.edu or (859) 257-1415.

MEDIA CONTACT:  Kathy Johnson, (859) 257-3155 or kathy.johnson@uky.edu