The community is invited to the annual Pauline and Philip M. Piaker Memorial Lecture to be held on Thursday, October 29, at 7 pm, at the Chabad Center in Vestal. The guest speaker will be Henry Abramson, Ph.D., the dean of Lander College for Men, Touro University and a specialist in Jewish history and thought. He will present on “American Jews, Meet History; The National Experiment at 250.” A Q-and-A session and book signing will follow his presentation. Refreshments will be served. There is no charge for the event, but reservations must be made by Monday, October 26, at www.JewishBU.com/Piaker or by calling 607-797-0015.

"Pauline and Philip Piaker were great patriots and intellects, as well as passionate and proud Jews. I think they would have loved this presentation marking this important anniversary; the 250th year since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776," said Rivkah Slonim.

Abramson is a native of northern Ontario, who earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Toronto for a thesis on the Jews of Ukraine, later published by Harvard University. Before joining Touro University, he held post-doctoral and visiting appointments at Cornell, Harvard, Oxford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1995-96, while doing his post-doc at Cornell, Abramson taught Judaic studies at Hillel Academy in Binghamton.

Abramson's research has been recognized with fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Foundation of Canada, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was awarded the Excellence in the Academy award by the National Education Association. He is the author of five books and numerous scholarly essays, including the four-volume “The Jewish People: A History,” forthcoming from Koren Publishers in Jerusalem. His online lectures have been viewed more than 15 million times and he holds a YouTube Creator Award for his popularization of Jewish History.