Fairfield University's Judaic Studies program presents author Eli N. Evans | Press Releases

Judaic Studies Program at Fairfield University presents author Eli N. Evans on Monday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m., in the University's Dolan School of Business, accessible via the Barlow Road entrance. Evans' topic is "The Political, Social and Religious Experiences of Jews in the American South." He will also talk about the nomination of Sen. Joseph Lieberman to the Democratic national ticket and how that relates to past and present Southern political thinking.

Evans is the author of three books: The Lonely Days Were Sundays: Reflections of a Jewish Southerner, The Provincials: A Personal History of the Jews in the South, and Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate. Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides has called Evans' The Provincials "the seminal indispensable book about the Jewish experience…one of a kind, a masterpiece."

A native of Durham, North Carolina, Evans graduated from the University of North Carolina and spent two years in the United States Navy, stationed in Japan. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1963, he served in the White House as a speech writer for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

He was the staff director at Duke University of a nationwide study on the future of the states headed by former Governor of North Carolina and U.S. Senator, Terry Sanford. As a senior program officer, he also traveled extensively in the South for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the national educational foundation.

Since 1977, he has been president of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, a $200 million foundation in New York which makes grants for programs that deal with urban affairs, education, biomedical research and Jewish philanthropy.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the university's Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies and the Schnurmacher Foundations. For more information, call the Bennett Center at (203) 254-4000, ext. 2066.