Book talk: “American Reich” | The Blaze Bernstein story

One night in early 2018, while he was home from college, a Jewish, gay student named Blaze Bernstein snuck out of his parents’ house in Orange County. Waiting for him in a car outside was an old high-school classmate: Sam Woodward, someone who Blaze mostly remembered as a brooding, bigoted loner. But that night, after months of flirtatious messaging, Sam had succeeded in coaxing Blaze out for a rendezvous. No one would ever see him alive again.

In his new book, American Reich, veteran investigative journalist Eric Lichtblau uses the story of Blaze’s life and death to shine a light on the epidemic of hate in Southern California and, increasingly, the nation as a whole.

The Forward’s Louis Keene covered Woodward’s trial and sentencing in a series of award-winning reports. In conversation with Eric Lichtblau, they’ll explore the case and its nationwide implications.

This event is free to Forward members; for others a minimum donation of $18 is suggested.

This event will be recorded and the recording will be sent to all registrants.

Contact us with any questions: [email protected].

You can purchase American Reich at this link, or wherever books are sold.

Eric Lichtblau is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the bestselling author of The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men and Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice.

Louis Keene is an award-winning reporter for the Forward, based in Los Angeles. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Vice, SB Nation and elsewhere.