Sunday, April 16th
1:30pm ET Doors | 2:00 pm ET Performance 
Live at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History
General Admission Ticket: $18 | Member Ticket: $13

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The combination of humor and heartbreak promises to make this theatrical reading of Noah Schoenberg’s Lev of Leningrad a memorable and moving experience. This powerful play offers a unique perspective on the immigrant experience. Lev and his wife Marina’s 24-year journey from the Soviet Union to America is sure to resonate with audiences and highlight the challenges and triumphs of adapting to a new culture, a modern American culture. In addition to enjoying the dramatic reading, guests will gain a deeper understanding of the immigrant experience.

About the Show
Lev Furman became a refusenik in 1974 after the Leningrad Office of the Emigration Department of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (LOEDRSFSR, for short) denied Lev’s application for an exit visa. For the next fourteen years Lev resisted the not very secret Russian police (KGB) and Soviet bureaucrats while building a not so underground Jewish studies movement and demanding the right to emigrate.

Lev and his wife Marina – also a refusenik, originally from Kyiv, in Ukraine – were finally expelled in 1988. They landed in Philadelphia 10 years later.

Lev of Leningrad is their story, an extraordinary family saga of contradictions that Lev embraced while obeying law and conscience, both divine and humane, in Leningrad as a refusenik and in Philadelphia as a father.

One constant: Lev has never stopped fighting for freedom; just a few months ago, he refused to withdraw from the sauna at closing time.

About the Playwright
Noah Schoenberg is honored to have known the Furman family for many years, since meeting Michal on their first day of preschool at the Kaiserman Jewish Community Center in Wynnewood, Pa. Noah earned undergraduate degrees in mathematics and neuroscience and worked in finance for five years before he turned to playwriting. His change of profession did not surprise his previous employer, who was largely unimpressed with his work as a commodities analyst. Lev of Leningrad is Noah’s first play. He has other original pieces in development for the stage and screen.

Safety / Covid 19:
*This event will occur in the DELL THEATER.
*Masking in the museum is recommended.

Live at The Weitzman
101 South Independence Mall East (Corner of 5^th & Market)
Philadelphia, PA 19106

This program is presented by the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Partnership with the Jewish National Fund and Kasierman JCC.