Angela Buchdahl presents: Heart of a Stranger (Main) In-Person
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Angela Buchdahl—Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City and the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi—for a discussion of her memoir Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging. She will be joined in conversation by Allegra Goodman—local author of the bestselling novels Isola and The Chalk Artist.
- Date:
- Monday, October 27, 2025
- Time:
- 7:00pm - 8:30pm
- Time Zone:
- Eastern Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- Lecture Hall
- Branches:
- Main Library
- Audience:
- Adult
- Categories:
- Author Event City Event Feature
Angela Buchdahl is the first Asian American rabbi. She serves as the Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City, the first woman to lead this flagship congregation in its 185-year history. Under her leadership, Central has grown to become one of the largest synagogues in the world, with live stream viewers in more than one hundred countries. She has led prayers in the White House for two U.S. presidents and is frequently featured on national news outlets including Today, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal to speak on the moral issues of the day. Rabbi Buchdahl and her husband live in New York City and have three children.
Allegra Goodman’s new book This Is Not About Us will be published in February, 2026. Her novels include Isola (a Reese’s Book Club selection), Sam (a Read With Jenna Book Club selection), The Chalk Artist (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award), Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She has written two collections of stories, The Family Markowitz and Total Immersion and a novel for younger readers, The Other Side of the Island. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The American Scholar. Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and fellowships from MacDowell and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Mass.
The City of Cambridge does not discriminate, including on the basis of disability. We may provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternative formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to people with disabilities. For more information contact us at library@cambridgema.gov, 617-349-4032 (voice), or via relay at 711.