Join host David Hartmann and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses King of the Jews by Leslie Epstein; a selection by our book club member Shelia Delany.

This classic tells the darkly humorous story of I.C. Trumpelman, a man whose fancy determines the fate of others. Chosen as the head of a Judenrat, Trumpelman thrives on the power granted him and creates an authoritarian regime of his own within the ghetto. By turns a con man, charismatic leader and merciless dictator, Trumpelman reveals himself as an extraordinarily complex protagonist. King of the Jews will continue to be an extraordinary vision of occupied Poland, and offer stunning insight through the trappings of history to questions of equal moral complexity today.

Date: Thursday, June 25, 2026

Times: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific. For those in Europe the time is 12:30AM in London on June 26.

Location: Zoom Video Conference

Cost: Free

Reviews

"Remarkable. A lesson in what artistic restraint can do to help us imagine the dark places in our history." -- New York Times Book Review

"The best book yet to be written on the Holocaust. A superb novel." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"The first novel about the Holocaust that manages to be adequate to its own ambition." -- New York Magazine

Photo Credit: Other Press, Promotional Material, Public Domain