We think there’s a real need in the Napa Valley for more thought-provoking programming and events you can’t find anywhere else.  That’s why we founded the Napa Center for Thought & Culture.

The Center has some extraordinary programs and events planned for the balance of this year and into the next, with a plan to add even more in the coming months.

	Sunday, September 22, 2019, 4:00pm – 5:30pm BOOK LAUNCH & DISCUSSION: “REFUGEES IN AMERICA,” BY RABBI LEE BYCEL Co-Sponsored: Napa Center for Thought and Culture and Congregation Beth Shalom Venue: Congregation Beth Shalom Registration is required; Tickets (free)  “Refugees in America” is a timely, important, and deeply moving testament to the profound ways in which refugees have enriched our nation. By letting refugees tell their stories, Rabbi Lee Bycel reminds us of their humanity and our responsibilities to help them. You may pre-order the book through Napa Bookmine: elayna@napabookmine.com.
	Thursday, November 14, 2019, 7:00pm KATYA CENGEL – BOOK REVIEW: From Chernobyl with Love: Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union Co-Sponsored: Napa Center for Thought and Culture and Bookmine Venue: Bookmine Free Cengel first took a job at the Baltic Times just seven years after Latvia regained its independence. The idea of a free press in the Eastern Bloc was still so promising that she ultimately moved to the Ukraine. From there Cengel made several trips to Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. It was at Chernobyl that she met her fiancé, but as she fell in love, the Ukraine collapsed into what would become the Orange Revolution, bringing it to the brink of political disintegration and civil war. Ultimately, this fall of idealism in the East underscores Cengel’s own loss of innocence. From Chernobyl with Love is an indelible portrait of this historical epoch and a memoir of the highest order.
	Sunday, January 26, 2020 ALONG THE TRADE ROUTE: VIOLINS OF HOPE Venue: Jarvis Conservatory Tickets: $30 – $65 For more than 20 years, Tel Aviv violin maker Amnon Weinstein and his son Avshalom have collected and restored instruments played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust — instruments often lost or abandoned as their owners attempted to escape the atrocities of World War II. The instruments lived on as their owners perished.  To tell the long-forgotten stories of these stringed instruments and the people who played them, the Weinsteins created Violins of Hope, a traveling project dedicated to their collection of more than 60 restored violins, violas and cellos. On January 26th, eight violinists will tell stories and play five violins from the collection.
	Wednesday, February 19, 2020 HEATHER BOOTH: CHANGING THE WORLD  Venue: CIA Copia We’re honored to not only have the film “Heather Booth: Changing the World,” but also, Heather Booth herself! Heather will talk about the film and answer questions. She is an American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist who has been involved in activism for progressive causes.
	Monday, March 16, 2020 DR. CHIP FLETCHER: CLIMATE CHANGE Venue: CIA Copia Dr. Charles “Chip” Fletcher is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He is also Vice-Chair of Honolulu Climate Change Commission.
	Sunday, May 3, 2020 JODI KLUGMAN-RABB: DISCOVERING YOUR TRUE PARENTAL IDENTITY Venue: Congregation Beth Shalom With easy access to DNA testing or learning of adoption, newly revealed family secrets are changing the landscape of family relationships, identity and sense of belonging. Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFT, LPC will speak on Parental Identity Discovery and the findings behind DNA tests and how to find the information and process what you discover. Jodi will share her own personal experience in being able to identify her own biological father.
	Thursday, May 14, 2020 CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM … DUELING OPINIONS Venue: CIA Copia

Today we ask you to become part of the Center 100: one hundred people who contribute $1,000 each, to help the Center attract the kind of programming that feeds the mind and nourishes the soul, helping us realize an ambition to bring the extraordinary artists, thinkers, authors, musicians, and others long absent in our community.

As a member of the Center 100, you will be acknowledged as such in the Center’s website, recognized at events, and enshrined as a founder central to the organization’s success.

Click here to Become a Center 100 Member