The Center for Jewish Culture has two upcoming events. The first is a meeting for the Jewish Culture Book Club on Monday, February 27. Participants will meet for a 90-minute session on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus in Library 314 at noon.

"The Plot Against America," by Philip Roth, will be the book up for discussion. Roth creates an alternative 1940's U.S., in which aviator Charles Lindbergh is elected president and makes a deal with Adolf Hitler.

Lunch will be served.

On Wednesday, March 22, participants can meet authors Ali Abu Awwad and Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger at 7 p.m. in the Library Grand Reading Room.

Having just finished his book, "Painful Hope," Ali Abu Awwad is a leading Palestinian activist teaching his countrymen non-violent resistance. Jailed by Israel for stone throwing and membership in a terrorist cell, he demanded to see his mother who was also imprisoned. Through voracious reading while still in jail, he came under the influence of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Mandela.

Hanan Schlesinger is an Orthodox rabbi and teacher, and a passionate Zionist settler who has been profoundly transformed by his friendship with Ali. His understanding of the reality of the Middle East conflict and of Zionism has been utterly complicated by the parallel universe that Ali has introduced him to. Schlesinger originally hails from New York.

Schlesinger had never met a Palestinian as an equal before befriending Awwad, and their meetings  have become far more meaningful than he could ever have imagined.