<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Dear Colleagues,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Although the colleges are still on break, I wanted to call to your attention an event that should be of interest. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Author and translator Peter Wortsman has several times visited the Valley under the auspices of the Hampshire College Center for the Book, the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, and most recently, the Amherst College German Department. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>On the first of those occasions, he delivered a lecture on his translation of German humanist Johannes Reuchlin's argument against the burning of the Talmud. Mr. Wortsman then wrote a play about the controversy, excerpts of which the players of the Renaissance Center read on the occasion of a conference on Jews in the Renaissance. This visit in turn led to a collaboration with the Hampshire Shakespeare Company and the present event.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Jim Wald</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><B>DATE: January 1, 2006 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE</B><B><O:P></O:P></B></DIV><P align="center" style="text-align: center;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><B> </B></SPAN><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><B><O:P></O:P></B></SPAN></P><P align="center" style="text-align: center;"><B>Hampshire Shakespeare to Stage Reading of New Play </B><B><O:P></O:P></B></P><DIV><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><B>Amherst, MA</B></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> – A story of courage and dedication to the defense of religious rights, long obscured by the veils of history, is uncovered in New York playwright Peter Wortsman’s powerful drama, <I>Burning Words</I></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">, which will receive a staged public reading on </SPAN></FONT><STRONG><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Friday, January 20, at 7:00 PM in the Glass Room of the Bangs Community Center</SPAN></FONT></STRONG><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> in downtown Amherst. The reading is presented by the Hampshire Shakespeare Company as part of its mission to encourage new dramatic works. The playwright will be available to discuss the play following the reading. Admission is free, and parking is available in the adjacent lot and parking garage. For more information, call 413-548-8118 or visit the Company’s web site (</SPAN></FONT></SPAN><A href="http://www.hampshireshakespeare.org/"><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">www.hampshireshakespeare.org</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></A><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">).</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV><DIV><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">In the early 1500s, an era marked by the lingering excesses of the Inquisition and the initial rumblings of protest by Martin Luther, Emperor Maximillian I was persuaded to order the confiscation and destruction of holy Hebrew texts by rabidly antisemitic forces. One German Christian scholar, Johannes Reuchlin, argued forcefully for their preservation as the foundations of the Christian faith, adding the "the Jew is as worthy in the eyes of our Lord God as I am." The play tells the story of Reuchlin’s confrontation with his church and his society in one of the most religiously turbulent times in European history. </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV><DIV><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Peter Wortsman is a playwright and author who translated Reuchlin’s historic defense of the Talmud and other holy books, <I>Recommendation Whether to Confiscate, Destroy and Burn All Jewish Books</I></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> for the first time into English. This book, on which the play is based, was the subject of a day-long symposium at New York University in 2001 attended by a wide variety of scholars, clergy, diplomates and publishers. An earlier dramatic work by Wortsman, <I>The Tattooed Man</I></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">, based on interviews with a Holocaust survivor, was published in 2000. For the more information about this and other Hampshire Shakespeare Company projects, call 413-548-8118 or visit the Company’s web site (</SPAN></FONT></SPAN><A href="http://www.hampshireshakespeare.org/"><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">www.hampshireshakespeare.org</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></A><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">).</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV><P align="center" style="text-align: center;"><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">###</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><DIV class="MsoNormal"><BR></DIV><DIV class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: auto;"><BR></DIV><DIV class="MsoNormal" style=""><BR> 413-587-9398 </DIV><DIV class="MsoNormal"><A href="mailto:lucindakidder@hotmail.com">lucindakidder@hotmail.com</A> </DIV><DIV class="MsoNormal"><A href="mailto:jlkidder@english.umass.edu">jlkidder@english.umass.edu</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>