Sanctuary in the Heights: Migration and Memory in Washington Heights

Rob Snyder, author of the book Crossing Broadway, Washington Heights and the Promise of New York City, and Professor of Journalism and American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark, leads a walking tour and panel discussion in the northern Manhattan neighborhood once known as “Frankfurt on the Hudson” for its large population of German-Jewish refugees. Eight decades later, the neighborhood is still a vibrant home for new immigrant communities.

Panelists:

• Hasia R. Diner, Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History at New York University, is an American historian exploring the mutual impact of America and the Jews. The main foci of her work are Jewish history, European American immigration history and women’s history.
• Angela Fernandez is Executive Director and Supervising Attorney of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Angela is a first generation immigrant, whose mother migrated to the United States from Baitoa of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. A graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, she has more than 20 years of experience advocating for human and civil rights in the United States and internationally.
• Mark S. Hamburgh is a New York attorney whose practice focuses on estate planning, estate administration, elder law and real estate law. The son of German-Jewish immigrants, he was raised in Washington Heights. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Hebrew Tabernacle, and served as the congregation’s president from 1999 to 2004.
• Ruth Westheimer is a therapist who pioneered speaking frankly about sexual matters on radio with her program Sexually Speaking in the 1980s and in dozens of books published subsequently. Born in Germany in 1928, Westheimer escaped the Holocaust in Switzerland and emigrated to Mandate Palestine after the war. After military service in Israel and studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, she settled in Washington Heights, where she still lives today.

Separate tickets are available for the walking tour and panel discussion. Tickets to the walking tour include admission to the panel discussion.