BY KAREN BOSSICK

The former executive director of The International Churchill Society will offer two free presentations concerning Winston Churchill this week.

Lee Pollock will discuss Winston Churchill and the Jews as a guest speaker of the Wood River Jewish Community at 6 p.m. Friday, July 20, at St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

Pollock will explore how Churchill’s relationship with the Jewish people helped define his life and career and how his decisions impacted the fate of Jews regarding Zionism and the Balfour Declaration, the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust and, finally, the creation of the State of Israel.

Then, on Wednesday, July 25, Pollock will offer a presentation titled “Churchill at the Movies” at 6 p.m. at the Community Library.

According to Pollock, Churchill was a dedicated film watcher, especially during World War II when he reveled in movies that glorified Britain’s storied past.

During the 1930s, he even wrote screenplays and befriended personalities like Charlie Chaplin with whom he contemplated an epic about Napoleon. The movie would have used Churchill’s script and starred the diminutive-sized Chaplin playing Napoleon.