"Soldiers, Sailors and Spies in Blue and Gray"
A Talk by Todd Stettner
Exploring the stories of individual Jewish soldiers, sailors, and spies during the Civil War - why they fought, where, and what they sacrificed.
Wednesday, October 28
Doors open at 6:30 PM - cocktails and light refreshments served
Presentation begins at 7:15 PM
Olathe Community Center, Room A
Free admission
About Todd Stettner
Todd has been fascinated by the Civil War since he was a teenager, when he first read historian Bruce Catton's trilogy on the war and never looked back. He's now a board member of the Civil War Roundtable of Kansas City, and has visited most of the major battlefields across the East.
This particular talk has been years in the making. In 2013, Todd was asked to give a presentation at a Jewish event in the JCC titled "Jews and the Civil War." Preparing for it opened up a whole new side of the story for him - one that led him, eventually, to "Soldiers, Sailors, and Spies in Blue and Gray," which he first delivered in 2021 in recognition of Veterans Day. It's the story of individual Jews - their history, their heroism, and the risks they took, on both sides of the war, for the land they'd made their own. Along the way, his research also turned up the story of Judah P. Benjamin, a Jewish man who became the Confederacy's Secretary of State — a tale, he says, for another time. (He's currently preparing a new talk on that, along with one on General Ulysses Grant's infamous "Order No. 11.")
Beyond his love of history, Todd spent over forty-four years in Jewish social services, working in six cities from coast to coast before settling in Kansas City in 1999, where he was recruited to serve as President & CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City. He retired from that role in 2016 and has since consulted for nonprofits, served as interim director of the Kansas City–based Medical Missions Foundation, and currently sits on the board of Village Shalom, a senior care facility. In 2019, he became a mentor in the Master's program at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. He's been married for over 45 years, and has two married sons and three grandsons - who he hopes will one day share his love of history.