Photo of Pearl Berlin and Lennie Gerber

CHAPEL HILL – The Levin Jewish Community Center will host the first new series of community events entitled JCC Conversations Sunday.

Its topic is Love and Equality.  During the event there will be a panel discussion on marriage in NC with Lennie Gerber and Pearl Berlin, Marcie and Chantelle Fisher-Borne, and Lydia Lavelle.  Penny Rich, from the JCC, says that they made this event after hearing about Lennie and Pearl’s 47 years together.

“We thought about it, and we we’re like, wow,” Rich says. “At first, we were kind of joking around, but then it turned into, we should really have some sort of celebration of their life. “We hadn’t had a series yet that they quite fit into, so we actually developed a series around the social justice issue and that’s where JCC Conversations came about.”

Featured outtakes from the documentary film “Living in the Overlap” will be played during the event.  Lennie and Pearl are the subjects of the documentary, which is being entered into the Full Frame festival in the spring.  JCC executive director, Steve Schauder, says that the Jewish community has been progressive about the issue of equal marriage.

“Yeah, I think especially in regards to the Jewish community, every synagogue, the JCC, our Jewish federation, everyone opposed amendment one,” Schauder says. “So from our perspective we really see this as taking the lead and really mobilizing the community around a really critical human rights issue.”

The Pre-Program Reception tickets have sold out, but general admission tickets are still available for $12 and $8 for Levine JCC members.  Penny Rich says that she is excited to have Lydia Lavelle on the panel, and to bring the topic of social justice to the Jewish Community Center.

“We looked at what we want to cover this year, and we did decide that social justice was something that we really wanted to bring to the JCC,” Rich says. “We have a group there now that does a lot of social justice programming, but we didn’t have one specifically that the JCC does.”

Only the first of several events, the JCC Conversations: Love and Equality will be held at their community center on Cornwallis in Durham from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.

To buy tickets or find out more information on the event click here.

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