JCC Cultural Arts and Book Series: Marra Gad

Wright Library, in partnership with the Jewish Community Center of Greater Dayton, welcomes Marra Gad Wednesday, November 20 at 7:00 p.m. for a presentation of her book The Color of Love.  The presentation will be in the form of an interview of Gad by local author, Martha Moody Jacobs. Three days after her birth, Marra was adopted by a white Jewish family in Chicago. For her parents, it was love at first sight—but it was 1970, and they soon came to realize that not everyone loved so freely. Since her adoption, Marra has always had trouble finding a community that would accept her. She is not “black enough” for black spaces and, in the Jewish community, she has often been cast aside or disrespected. Marra’s family cut out those relatives who could not tolerate the color of her skin— including her beloved, glamorous, worldly Great-Aunt Nette. But after an estrangement of fifteen years, Marra discovers that Nette has Alzheimer’s, and that only she is in a position to get Nette back to the family she has left. Marra watches as the disease erases her aunt’s racism, making space for a relationship that was never possible before.

Marra B. Gad was born in New York, raised in Chicago and now calls Los Angeles home. She is an independent film and television producer. Ms. Gad’s first book, THE YERUSHA: A Love Story in Black and White, will be a lead title for Agate Publishing in September 2019. Ms. Gad is a proud graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds a Master’s Degree in Jewish Communal Service from Baltimore Hebrew University