Children’s Book World

Children’s Book World and Kaiserman JCC invite you to a special evening with Myra Sack, author of
57 Fridays: Losing Our Daughter, Finding Our Way.
Myra will be at Kaiserman JCC on Wednesday, May 8 at 7PM in conversation with her husband Matthew Goldstein.
They will discuss the book which is an affecting, meditative memoir honoring their daughter Havi who died of Tay-Sachs.

The evening will be moderated by Lisa Hostein, Executive Editor of Hadassah Magazine.

Use this link to order your tickets for the event. Each order includes admission for two and a copy of the book.
https://www.phillyjcc.com/event/57-fridays/

If you cannot attend the event and would like to order a copy of the book, please contact the store at 610-642-6274

About Myra Sack

Myra Sack, who grew up on the Main Line, wrote FIFTY-SEVEN FRIDAYS: Losing Our Daughter, Finding Our Way, an affecting, meditative memoir honoring her daughter Havi who died of Tay-Sachs.

When their daughter Havi was a year old, Myra Sack and her physician husband Matt Goldstein noticed delays in her physical development. After physical therapy was prescribed with no noticeable progress, and more developmental milestones were missed, Myra and Matt, driven to find answers, sought out pediatric specialists. On December 17, 2019, their world was shattered. At fifteen months old, Havi was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that can be revealed through genetic testing but was mis-reported to the couple.

Havi was given just a year to live.

FIFTY-SEVEN FRIDAYS: Losing Our Daughter, Finding Our Way is a memoir of Havi’s short life and her parents’ poignant and tragic journey to help their daughter live and die. In revealing the beauty and fullness that can be discovered by learning to coexist with grief, Myra Sack offers the reader nothing short of “an act of grace” (Beverly Donofrio, author of Riding in Cars with Boys). Grief can be utterly leveling, but Myra and Matt determined that to process the inevitable sorrow that was to come, they must first fully embrace Havi’s life. They vowed to show her as much of the world as they could and surround her with friends and family so that she would always feel their love, and they hers. They transformed Friday night Shabbat dinners into “Shabbirthdays,” each week that sacred evening replacing a birthday Havi would never have. Havi died at two years, four months, and sixteen days old: fifty-seven “Shabbirthdays” celebrated in sixteen months.

In the years since Havi’s death, both Myra and Matt have found purpose in their pain. Myra is now certified in Compassionate Bereavement Care and serves on the board of the Courageous ParentsNetwork. She also founded e-motion, inc., a non-profit organization she designed that blends bereavement-science, spirituality, and sport to help those who’ve lost a loved one find a new way of living with grief and loss. In just two years, e-motion has partnered with Boston Medical Center, YMCA, and Soccer Without Borders, as well as Common Goal on behalf of the National Women’s Soccer League to support professional athletes’ emotional and mental health needs on and off the field; the organization has also developed a training and grief literacy education program, and an innovative 10-week running program combining the power of running, the strength of community, and the healing energy of ritual to enhance our capacity to cope with loss.

Matt is now the CEO of JScreen at Emory University, an organization focused on high-quality, preventative genetic care and testing.

MORE ABOUT MYRA SACK: Myra Sack has written for numerous publications including Upworthy, Hadassah Magazine, and TODAY.com. Myra grew up on the Main Line and earned a BA in government with All-American Honors from Dartmouth College, where she captained the women’s soccer team and co-founded Athletes United, a student-led initiative to connect local children with student athletes through a cost-free sports league and holistic mentoring program. A postgraduate fellowship allowed her to launch the Latin American arm of Soccer Without Borders in Granada, Nicaragua. Myra’s lifelong passion for sports and social justice brought her to SquashBusters, a pioneer organization that reaches thousands of young people around the world through long-term extracurricular squash, academic, and social-emotional programming. She was awarded an MBA in Social Impact from Boston University and has been inducted into the Lower Merion High School Hall of Fame and the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, where she serves as a board member. FIFTY-SEVEN FRIDAYS is her first book.

About Event Moderator Lisa Hostein

Lisa Hostein became the Executive Editor of Hadassah Magazine in November 2015, making her the first female journalist to lead the more than 100-year-old publication. Her prior experience included serving nearly 15 years as editor in chief of JTA, the global Jewish news agency, and eight years as the executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. She shattered the glass ceilings at those media organizations as well, as the first woman to helm both enterprises. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she has received numerous journalism awards from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Philadelphia Press Association and the American Jewish Press Association, which has honored her with its Award for Distinguished Service to Jewish Journalism and where she has long served on its executive committee. She lives in Lower Merion with her husband and has two young adult sons.