Celebrating black history

The Gross Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, the Rabbi Israel S. Dresner Center of Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne, the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey, and the Wayne Public Library host “Black Jewish Reconciliation: Rebuilding the Bridge.” The talk, with Avi Dresner and Donzaleigh Abernathy, will be at Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne on Wednesday, February 12, at 7:30 p.m.; it also will be available on Zoom. There will be dessert.

Donzaleigh Abernathy is the youngest daughter of the Rev. Dr. Ralph David Abernathy, co-founder of the American civil rights movement, and Juanita Jones Abernathy. She and her sister are goddaughters of their parents’ best friend, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She wrote “Partners to History: Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and the Civil Rights Movement,” which the American Library Association nominated as one of the best books for young adults, in 2003.

She’s also an actress; among her many roles, she starred in the Emmy Award-winning HBO films “Don King — Only in America” and “Miss Evers’ Boys.”

Works by Avi Dresner, a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and screenwriter, have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, and he is a two-time winner of the Rockower award from the American Jewish Press Association. He is the executive producer of an upcoming documentary, “The Rabbi & The Reverend,” and co-screenwriter of the feature film script for “King’s Rabbi.” Both tell the story of his father, Rabbi Israel Dresner, the most arrested and jailed rabbi during the civil rights movement and an ally and friend of  Dr. King.

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The Reverend Dr. Willard Ashley, Sr., who also will be at the program, leads the Abundant Joy Community Church in Jersey City. He is a psychoanalyst, group psychotherapist, and clinical fellow in the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapists, with a private practice in Upper Montclair. He is a board member of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School and was the first African American dean of New Brunswick Theological Seminary. He has written four books.

For information, go to templebethtikvahnj.org; for the Zoom link, email info@jhsnnj.org. The program is free to the community; donations to the Dresner Center are welcome.