“Are Some Wounds Too Deep to Heal?” will be addressed at a Community Conversations program at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 21, at Beth Israel Congregation, 291 Main St., Waterville. The program, presented by the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, is free and open to the public, according to a news release from Liz Soloway Snider, administrative specialist, The Center for Small Town Jewish Life, Colby College.

The second in a series of conversations centered around the theme “Are We One? Speaking as a Divided Nation,” this conversation is between Michelle Friedman, chairwoman of pastoral counseling at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and associate professor of psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, and Darren Ranco, associate professor of anthropology and chair of Native American programs, University of Maine. The two speakers will discuss whether the community can really come back together in the wake of the 2016 presidential election and the divisive rhetoric and contempt among neighbors it engendered.

Friedman will approach the question as a Jewish psychotherapist and the child of Holocaust survivors. Ranco will address it from the viewpoint of an anthropologist and as a member of the Penobscot Nation. From both their academic vantage points and personal backgrounds, they will share their perspectives on where we stand as a country, and the potential for healing and its limits.

Community Conversations is a series of three events bringing together Waterville faith and community institutions with Colby faculty and students to consider major issues of common concern. This series began last year, with scholars from the field of Jewish studies and civic leaders discussing the intersection of Jewish civilization and current political issues in the United States.

The third conversation in this series will take place at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, March 11. The theme will be “Faith and Equality: How do we get along when our personal faith and societal conceptions of equality and justice diverge?” with speakers Amy Walter, national editor of The Cook Report, and Steve Jacobson, vice president for strategy at the Dorot Foundation and director of the Dorot Fellowship in Israel.

Coffee, tea, and dessert will be served.

For more information, contact Rabbi Rachel Isaacs at risaacs@colby.edu, 859-4271 or jewishlife@colby.edu.