Webcast: Dr. Mark Ozer on the 'Litvak Legacy'

Calling all Litvaks - and everyone else - to a great webcast by author Dr. Mark N. Ozer of "The Litvak Legacy."

Ozer spoke at the Library of Congress on October 15, 2009; view the 54-minute talk here.

His talk focused on his book, which documents the contributions of Lithuanian Jews to the English-speaking world and Israel.

From the 1880s to the 1920s, an estimated one million Lithuanian Jews (Litvak) left their native Lita, on the western edge of the Russian Empire, due to the anti-semitism of the Czars. They emigrated to the United States and other countries throughout the world.

He is introduced on the webcast by the LOC's Peggy Pearlstein of the Hebraic Section, one of the world’s important centers for the study of Hebrew and Yiddish materials.

She personally assisted Tracing the Tribe to find the books of poems by our cousin Leib Borisovich Talalay, a Yiddish poet killed in the Minsk Ghetto uprising in 1941. The two books were at the LOC and Tracing the Tribe received copies of both. The poems provided many details, confirming family and places.

A Boston native Dr. Mark N. Ozer MD, lives in Washington, D.C. He studied modern European history as a Harvard undergrad and, since his retirement as a Georgetown University clinical neurology professor, he has written and lectured extensively on the history of cities through the world.

He's also authored or edited nine books on health and learning issues, and is currently working on a book on Massachusetts Avenue.