Help Preserve the Legacy of Holocaust Artist Irving Belfer

I need the public’s help. I’m on a mission to help the Ellis family, whom I’ve known since I was toddler. One of the former patriarchs of the family, Irving Belfer, was a Holocaust survivor. After his liberation, he created several artworks that are museum quality. During his 2nd new life in America, he displayed his artwork throughout his house. He wanted his children and grandchildren to see them. This continued until his death in 2012. Sine then, his artwork was placed in public storage, and the prices are increasing each year. I’ve been reaching out to a few museums myself. I’m trying to see if they’d be willing to reach back to family. Nevertheless, his artwork collection is so huge, the museums can’t permanently hold them. The family is willing at this time that even if a portion of his artwork is taken by a few willing museums, organizations and even private Jewish day schools and/or colleges, it’s a way to preserve his legacy. I’m helping to publicize his artworks, and you can watch my video short here:

(I meant to say patriarch in the video, not patron.) You can watch the short documentary about the artist below. It was filmed by a former student at CSUN.

If you can provide any information, that would be of great help. Please reach out to me directly at becca@becca-b.com. Thank you, and Shalom.

Health and Reading Goals: 2025 Reading Challenge Update

Good Evening, and a belated Happy New Year to all my voracious Book Dragons! I’m sorry I’ve been MIA, but I’ve been very ill since Thanksgiving, and there’s still no end in sight of what I could possibly have. I can barely talk, and I’ve had some breathing issues due to this continuous cough.

But, at the end of the day, I wanted to create a new video for the new year, and here it is: https://youtu.be/O93rq2sUGWs?si=Yfr-CQXePGhygAiZ My video will premiere on my YouTube channel tonight at 8pm PST. Here, I share the wrap up of the 2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge, the New PopSugar Reading Challenge of 2025, and I get very personal about health, both physically and mentally, and what my goals and resolutions are this year, including taking part in the Conqueror Challenges. Stay Tuned!

Becca’s Book TALKS with Osiris Munir of Ankh Entertainment airs today at 10am

After almost a year of no interviews, I had a chance meeting with Osiris Munir in my archery class. She is such a gracious person, and holds nothing back. This interviewing was eye-opening for me. Come join me and get ready to learn from entertainment personality to author turned artist.

Drag is Queen! My Latest Book Review Video Premieres tonight at 5:30pm

Good evening my fellow Book Dragons. I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. I’ve been sick since Thanksgiving, and now I possibly have laryngitis, so I can’t talk. Luckily, before that happened, I did get an interview by chance at the last minute. I’m still editing that video.

For this book review, It took such a long time for me to edit part 2 of “In Praise of Queens” for RuPaul’s memoir “The House of Hidden Meanings”; getting feedback is crucial to the editing as I tend to go off tangents. Mind you, these tangents connect to the video, but it took away from the memoir. It was incredible that I got to see him live at the LA Festival of Books at USC before the protests took over. I didn’t know his birthday was two weeks ago. So, if anyone knows RuPaul personally, please let him know that this is his birthday gift from me. From another view, I highly recommend his memoir because he’s a ‘scholar of the little things” and what it means to be different that transcend beyond the page. He also provides questions for the reader to ponder, and to answer to themselves honestly. Enjoy! Here is the link. I’ll be linking my book reviews to another tab because I’m adding them to my podcast as a separate category.

Latest Book Review: In Praise of “Queens”

I recorded my latest book review of Xianna Michaels’s stories in verse: “Lily of the Valley”, “the Sorcerer Queen” and RuPaul’s memoir “The House of Hidden Meanings”. Due to extensive amount of time, I divided the video into two parts. Here’s the first one with Xianna Michaels’s stories, where I include anecdotes and reflections about the American dream, and allusions to classic fairytales. Come check it out here: https://youtu.be/CfkSQquJCJs. I will have this posted to another tab in the website as soon as I get some time.

The History Boys: A Call to Elective Action

I can’t believe it took this long to edit the video, and I didn’t see the ‘date’ of the schedule. However, here’s my critical book review of Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys”, which includes personal anecdotes, and my own POV about the election day. Make your voice heard and Vote! Here’s the video. https://youtu.be/watQWLIqJ24?si=ALb883aLmFkfdY3b

The Book Dragon Reading Challenge

Hello fellow Book Dragons! Some time ago, I started writing down some new projects I’d like to try to complete, and new ideas. So, since I renamed my YouTube channel, “Becca B. | The Book Dragon”, I decided to plan and write down my own reading challenge book tasks. In a small, leather bound journal I bought an Amazon, I started to handwrite each book task based on dragons, reading, book burning, and challenged/banned books. Usually, most reading challenges, like the one I’ve never completed from PopSugar, have 52 book tasks, with the last 10-12 being “advanced”. 52 books equals 52 weeks in a year, one book per week. However, I came up with 26 book tasks. Half the time, half the books, but no less challenging, with the last two I would consider “advanced”. The real reason for the 26? Students are in school on average for 180 days. Due to excessive amounts of homework, they won’t have much time for extra reading. I wanted these book reading tasks to be fun, but also educational. This challenge is based on my first attempt to get my own former students to read, but also to earn incentives.

A handful of my former high school students accepted the reading challenge questionnaire I created based on the PopSugar Reading Challenge of 2017. I created a dedicated page for each of the 52 book tasks that required students to seek and find the information direct from the books they chose to read. These questions included the copyright information (title, author, publication date), genre, a quote with their commentary, a summary in their own words, and 2-3 additional questions that connected to the different book tasks. For every 5 books read, and 5 questionnaire pages completed (with no sign of plagiarism) prior to the end of the semester/year, the student(s) would earn $25 in gift cards of their choice. I sought out gift cards the school had already for other incentives, but I ended up buying the gift cards using money I earned from my paycheck(s). One student earned $75 for reading 15 books and answered the questions in great detail. After that semester, I became too busy with other professional learning, and so I didn’t do it again.

You may download The Book Dragon Reading Challenge from the newest page added to my website. I do plan to make a reading journal for this challenge, that I eventually want to sell. I’ve seen reading journals in bookstores for people to jot down the books they read that year, and some include questions for the readers to answer. “My Reading Life”, and “Bibliophile” are two of the reading journals I bought for myself.

However, I decided to think outside the box. Why not take it to next level? A real reading challenge every student is worthy of? A TUITION SCHOLARSHIP! That’s the dream that I hope one to turn into a reality for anyone who takes up my reading challenge, and completes the entire reading journal questionnaire whilst they’re still in school. College costs. Students have ample opportunities to earn scholarships to help pay for college tuition, books, room and board. I came across a letter that was sent to me in 2001, entitled “Who’s Who in America”, that acknowledges high school students for their academic prowess and achievements. I wish I would have thoroughly read the fine print: I could have filled out the form, sent it in, and could have earned a scholarship of $1,000 for college, and I didn’t think of it at the time. So, I missed out on a financial opportunity.

Some of the horror stories I’ve seen online include homeless people with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, some even with a doctorate’. Why are they homeless? Because they couldn’t pay back the student loans, or if they paid back the student loans, they couldn’t keep up with other added expenses, like medical and apartment housing. It’s crazy. While I was working as a teacher, almost half the teachers I worked with were still paying off student loans, and a few were lucky to have partners earning other income so they could live well off until all student depts were paid.

I have a story in mind that will connect to the reading challenge scholarship. Once the story is written and published, the idea is that whoever buys the book, a certain percentage of the proceeds will go towards funding the scholarship. If there’s anyone who knows other legit ways to start a scholarship, I’d love your knowledge and feedback. This is one dream of mine as an educator I would love to actually manifest and to help others. Please let me know what you think by commenting below. If the type from the reading challenge list isn’t legible for you, please let me know and I’ll upload another reader friendly version. Thank you.