Award-winning Author Kenneth Wishnia introduces the collection with a definition of noir as it relates to the Jewish experience, beginning from biblical times until today. He reminds us that the Jews are called ivrim or "from the other side"- strangers, wanderers, rootless people. We are the "chosen ones" but also cursed; our biblical stories are nightmarish, as is our history both ancient and modern, filled with tormentors and pursuers, inquisitions and blood libels, satans and angels, visionaries and prophets of doom and man-made yet divinely touched golems.

Kenneth Wishnia teaches writing, literature and other deviant forms of thought at Suffold Community Collage in Brentwood, Long Island, where he is a professor of English.

Cost: $18 per person, $10 for seniors and students