LA JOLLA, California (Press Release)–Here are the featured events of the upcoming San Diego Jewish Book Fair:
Sat Nov 3- 8:00pm-Temple Solel
Daniel Silva- The Fallen Angel- a novel
After narrowly surviving his last operation, Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, has taken refuge behind the walls of the Vatican, where he is restoring one of Caravaggio’s greatest masterpieces. But early one morning he is summoned to St. Peter’s Basilica by Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII. The body of a beautiful woman lies broken beneath Michelangelo’s magnificent dome. The Vatican police suspect suicide, though Gabriel believes otherwise. So, it seems, does Donati. But the monsignor is fearful that a public inquiry might inflict another scandal on the Church, and so he calls upon Gabriel to quietly pursue the truth—with one caveat.
“Rule number one at the Vatican,” Donati said. “Don’t ask too many questions.”
Gabriel learns that the dead woman had uncovered a dangerous secret—a secret that threatens a global criminal enterprise that is looting timeless treasures of antiquity and selling them to the highest bidder. But there is more to this network than just greed. A mysterious operative is plotting an act of sabotage that will plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. . . .
An intoxicating blend of art, intrigue, and history, The Fallen Angel moves swiftly from the cloistered chambers of the Vatican to the glamorous ski slopes of St. Moritz to the graceful avenues of Berlin and Vienna—and, finally, to a shocking climax beneath the world’s most sacred and contested parcel of land. Each setting in this extraordinary novel is rendered with the care of an Old Master, as are the spies, lovers, priests, and thieves who inhabit its pages. It is a story of faith and of the destructive power of secrets—and an all too timely reminder that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
DANIEL SILVA is the number one New York Times–bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair and Portrait of a Spy. He is married to NBC News Today correspondent Jamie Gangel; they live inWashington,D.C., with their two children, Lily and Nicholas. In 2009 Silva was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
The evening is a Tribute to Gert Thaler, z”l
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Sun Nov 4- Temple Solel
Cookbook panel- 9:30 am
Galit Urich, Michal Levi, Jennie Starr – Israeli Food in America ,
Easy, Israeli, Mediterranean Style recipes reflecting the most popular dishes in Israelso you can bring a taste of Israel into your home using local ingredients. Recipes are written in English and in Hebrew.
Stanley Ginsberg- Inside the Jewish Bakery- Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking cooking
Winner of the IACP’s 2012 Jane Grigson Award for “distinguished scholarship in the quality of its research and presentation.”
Traditional Eastern European Jewish baking, along with the culture in which it evolved, is rapidly disappearing. Younger generations of American Jews are becoming increasingly assimilated into mainstream society. Small, family-run Jewish bakeries that once lay at the heart of their communities have fallen victim to the demise of the old-school bakers, shifting demographics and the economic firepower of diversified corporate food processors.
More than a collection of recipes, Inside the Jewish Bakery chronicles the history and traditions as well as the distinctive baked goods of Ashkenazic Jewry in Eastern Europe and America. Drawing on sources as diverse as the Talmud, the short stories of Sholom Aleichem and theyizkor books that memorialize communities destroyed in the Holocaust, the authors have crafted an engaging edible history that endows their recipes with a powerful sense of time and place.
Here, home bakers of all skill levels will learn to recreate the authentically Jewish breads, pastries, cookies and cakes that once filled the shelves of neighborhood bakeries. The recipes themselves are based on the professional formulas used by America s Jewish bakers during their Golden Age, adapted and tested for home kitchens.
In the chapter on rye bread, the authors present a range of recipes that span its history, from the dense black ryes of Eastern Europe and the traditional corn and deli ryes to today s lighter, less intensely flavored breads. They show us the many faces of challah as it evolved through the centuries and recount the roots and Americanization of bagels and bialys as well as recipes for a host of all-but-forgotten favorites like onion rolls, pletsl and salt sticks. And they evoke life in the traditional bakeries of decades past.
In the chapters on pastries, cakes and cookies, you ll find recipes for sweet treats that have all but disappeared from America s baking repertoire noshes like Russian coffee cake, honey cake made with rye flour, mandelbroyt, marbled wonder cake and black and white cookies that made Sunday mornings and festive occasions so memorable. A special chapter on Passover baking provides recipes for a host of leaven-free desserts to grace the Seder table.
Inside the Jewish Bakery takes you inside a fast-disappearing tradition. It is a book that is timeless in its appeal and is required reading for anyone interested in Ashkenazic Jewish history, culture and baking.
Stanley Ginsberg, a native of Brooklyn, grew up in a close-knit neighborhood where generations lived side by side. He learned to cook and bake from his grandmother, who lived just upstairs in the same apartment building, and has continued cooking and baking ever since. He currently lives in Southern California.
Judy Kempler- One Egg Is a Fortune: Memories and Recipes to Share-Featuring 50 Prominent People from Around the Globe Sharing their Nostalgic Recipes and Anecdotes
‘One Egg Is A Fortune’ is a cookbook full of heart! It is a book for today from times past. Fifty well-known Jewish figures from around the world have contributed recipes, biographies and anecdotes, showcasing the diversity of Jewish life. And while each person tells a unique story, their anecdotes reveal that the enjoyment of food is the common thread that binds us together. The title of our book was inspired by one of these beautiful stories. This timeless book presents over 100 delicious recipes with clear, easy-to-follow instructions with stunning food photography by Craig Cranko, sophisticated food styling by Michele Cranston from Marie Claire, The New York Times and other publications, and elegant book design by award winner Melanie Feddersen from i2i Design pty ltd. One Egg is a Fortune has been selected as a finalist in the very prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards inParison March 6, 2012.
Fashion program- 12 noon
Ari Seth Cohn – Advanced Style
Advanced Style is Ari Seth Cohen’s blog-based ode to the confidence, beauty, and fashion that can only be achieved through the experience of a life lived glamorously. It is a collection of street fashion unlike any seen before—focused on the over-60 set in the world’s most stylish locales. The (mostly) ladies of Advanced Style are enjoying their later years with grace and panache, marching to the beat of their own drummer. These timeless images and words of wisdom provide fashion inspiration for all ages and prove that age is nothing but a state of mind.
Ari Seth Cohen started his blog inspired by his own grandmother’s unique personal style and his lifelong interest in the put-together fashion of vibrant seniors. Each of his subjects sparkles like a diamond after long years spent refining and perfecting their individual look and approach to life. The Advanced Style book will showcase, in luscious full-color, the best of the blog, but will also act as a true guidebook with all-new material featuring wardrobes, interviews, stories, and advice from a cadre of his most chic subjects, along with a large selection of never-before-seen photography—fresh off of sidewalk catwalks around the world!
Ari Seth Cohen is a freelance writer, photographer, and blogger based in New York City. He is the creator of Advanced Style, a blog devoted “to capturing the sartorial savvy of the senior set.” Advanced Style has appeared in national media such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Vice Magazine, New York Magazine, The Fader, Vogue Japan, Vogue Italia, Elle, Elle UK, The UK Telegraph, Forbes.com, and internationally broadcast news and fashion programs.
Rachelle Bergstein Women from the Ankle Down-the Story of Shoes and How they Define Us
What is it about a pair of shoes that so enchants women of all ages, demographics, political affiliations, and style tribes? Part social history, part fashion record, part pop-culture celebration, Women from the Ankle Down seeks to answer that question as it unfolds the story of shoes in the twentieth century.
The tale begins in the ruralvillageofBonito,Italy, with a visionary young shoemaker named Salvatore Ferragamo and ends inNew York Citywith a fictional socialite and trendsetter named Carrie Bradshaw. Along the way it stops inHollywood, where Judy Garland first slipped on her ruby slippers;New Jersey, where Nancy Sinatra heard something special in a song about boots; and the streets ofManhattan, where a transit-worker strike propelled women to step into cutting-edge athletic shoes. Fashion aficionado Rachelle Bergstein shares the stories behind these historical moments, interweaving the design innovations and social changes that gave each one its lasting significance and appeal.
Bergstein shows how the story of shoes is the story of women, told from the ankle down. Beginning with the well-heeled suffragettes in the 1910s, women have fought for greater freedom and mobility, a struggle that exploded in the 1960s with the women’s liberation movement and culminated in the new millennium with our devotion to personal choice. Featuring interviews with designers, historians, and cultural experts, and a cast of real-life characters, from Marilyn Monroe to Jane Fonda, from Gwen Stefani to Manolo Blahnik, Women from the Ankle Down is a lively, compelling look at the evolution of modern women and the fashion that reflects—and has shaped—their changing lives.
Rachelle Bergstein graduated in 2003 from VassarCollege, where she won awards for her academic writing. She works as an editorial consultant for a literary agency in New York City, and her writing has appeared in Fresh Yarn, The Awl, Slice magazine, and The Dirty Durty Diary. She lives inBrooklyn with her husband, her cat, and her shoes. This is her first book.
“Every woman who loves her shoes should read this book – hell – every man who loves women’s shoes should read this book….Informative, interesting, and just plain fun.”
-New York Journal of Books
“An illuminating study of the history of women’s shoes in the 20th Century…Wickedly provocative.”
-Kirkus Reviews
“The evolution of women’s shoes since WWII becomes the story of women’s self-empowerment in this engaging, toe-to-heel study by editorial consultant Bergstein. . .[she] provides minibios and fascinating informational tidbits.”
-Publisher’s Weekly
2pm
Leonard Mlodinow –Subliminal-how your unconscious mind rules your behavior
Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of The Drunkard’s Walk and coauthor of The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), gives us a startling and eye-opening examination of how the unconscious mind shapes our experience of the world and how, for instance, we often misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates, misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions, and misremember important events.
Your preference in politicians, the amount you tip your waiter—all judgments and perceptions reflect the workings of our mind on two levels: the conscious, of which we are aware, and the unconscious, which is hidden from us. The latter has long been the subject of speculation, but over the past two decades researchers have developed remarkable new tools for probing the hidden, or subliminal, workings of the mind. The result of this explosion of research is a new science of the unconscious and a sea change in our understanding of how the subliminal mind affects the way we live.
Employing his trademark wit and lucid, accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects, Leonard Mlodinow takes us on a tour of this research, unraveling the complexities of the subliminal self and increasing our understanding of how the human mind works and how we interact with friends, strangers, spouses, and coworkers. In the process he changes our view of ourselves and the world around us.
Leonard Mlodinow was born in Chicago, Illinois, to immigrant Jewish parents who were holocaust survivors. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from the Universityof Californiaat Berkeley, and is now at Caltech. His book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives was a New York Times Bestseller, Editor’s Choice, and Notable Book of the Year, and was short-listed for the Royal Society book award. His other books include two co-authored with physicist Stephen Hawking — A Briefer History of Time, and The Grand Design. In addition to his books and research articles, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Forbes magazine, among other publications, and for television series such as McGyver and Star Trek: the Next Generation. Visit my web site at: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~len/
4pm
Daniel Smith- Monkey Mind- A memoir of Anxiety
Anxiety once paralyzed Daniel Smith over a roast beef sandwich, convincing him that a choice between ketchup and barbeque sauce was as dire as that between life and death. It has caused him to chew his cuticles until they bled, wear sweat pads in his armpits, and confess his sexual problems to his psychotherapist mother. It has dogged his days, threatened his sanity, and ruined his relationships.
In Monkey Mind, Smith articulates what it is like to live with anxiety, defanging the disease with humor, traveling through its demonic layers, and evocatively expressing its self-destructive absurdities and painful internal coherence. With honesty and wit, he exposes anxiety as a pudgy, weak-willed wizard behind a curtain of dread and tames what has always seemed to him, and to the tens of millions of others who suffer from anxiety, a terrible affliction.
Aaron Beck, the most influential doctor in modern psychotherapy, says that “Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.” Neurologist and bestselling writer Oliver Sacks says, “I read Monkey Mind with admiration for its bravery and clarity. . . . I broke out into explosive laughter again and again.” Here, finally, comes relief and recognition to all those who want someone to put what they feel, or what their loved ones feel, into words
Daniel Smith is the author of Muses, Madmen, and Prophets and a contributor to numerous publications, including The American Scholar, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and Slate.
7:30pm
Joseph Kanon- Istanbul- a novel-
A neutral straddling Europe and Asia,Istanbulsurvived the Second World War as a magnet for refugees and spies, trafficking in secrets and lies rather than soldiers. Expatriate American businessman Leon Bauer was drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs in support of the Allied war effort.
Now, as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of postwar life,Leonis given one last routine assignment. But when the job goes fatally wrong—an exchange of gunfire, a body left in the street, a potential war criminal on his hands—Leonis plunged into a tangle of intrigue, shifting loyalties, and moral uncertainty.
Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city,Leon’s conflicted attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt that ultimately threatens his own survival. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to be made?
Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Istanbul Passage is the haunting story of a man swept up in the dawn of the Cold War, of an unexpected love affair, and of a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.
Joseph Kanon is the author of five other novels, Los Alamos, The Prodigal Spy, The Good German, Alibi, and Stardust. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives inNew York City.
Mon. Nov 5- Temple Solel
10am
M G Lord- The Accidental Feminist- How Elizabeth Taylor raised our Consciousness ,and We were too distracted by her beauty to Notice
Movie stars establish themselves as brands–and Taylor’s brand , in its most memorable outings, has repeatedly introduced a broad audience to feminist ideas. In her breakout film, “National Velvet” (1944), Taylor’s character challenges gender discrimination,: Forbidden as a girl to ride her beloved horse in an important race, she poses as a male jockey. Her next milestone, “A Placein the Sun” (1951), can be seen as an abortion rights movie–a cautionary tale from a time before women had ready access to birth control. In “Butterfield 8” (1960), for which she won an Oscar, Taylorisn’t censured because she’s a prostitute, but because she chooses the men: she controls her sexuality, a core tenet of the third-wave feminism that emerged in the 1990s. Even “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966) depicts the anguish that befalls a woman when the only way she can express herself is through her husband’s stalled career and children.
The legendary actress has lived her life defiantly in public–undermining post-war reactionary sex roles, helping directors thwart the Hollywood Production Code, which censored film content between 1934 and 1967. Defying death threats she spearheaded fundraising for AIDS research in the first years of the epidemic, and has championed the rights of people to love whom they love, regardless of gender. Yet her powerful feminist impact has been hidden in plain sight. Drawing on unpublished letters and scripts as well as interviews with Kate Burton, Gore Vidal, Austin Pendleton, Kevin McCarthy, Liz Smith, and others, The Accidental Feminist will surpriseTaylor and film fans with its originality and will add a startling dimension to the star’s enduring mystique.
M. G. Lord is a cultural critic and investigative journalist. She is the author of the widely praised books Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science, a family memoir about Cold War aerospace culture, and “Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll.” Her latest book is “The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice.”
“For MG Lord, it’s curvaceous, charismatic icons of femininity that hold her imagination hostage…What Lord did for Barbie, she now does for La Liz in ‘The Accidental Feminist’…Lord takes her readers on a chronological journey through the actress’s signal performances, analyzing each film with a theory scholar’s eye for telling detail, brightened with bloggerly brio, emotion, and use of the first person…When watching her significant films in succession, you see that, as Lord maintains, each serves as a cinematic Rorschach of social changes percolating through postwar society, in which Taylor stars as the protean blot…With ‘The Accidental Feminist,’ MG Lord makes the intriguing case that for Elizabeth Taylor, too much as never enough–not for the woman, not for the actress and not for the society that produced the theater of her life.” The New York Times
With Shannon Halwes, Lord is also co-writing the libretto for composer Laura Karpman’s “One-Ten,” an opera commissioned by the L. A. Opera about the 110 Freeway on its 70th anniversary. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and that paper’s Arts & Leisure section, and her work has also appeared in such publications as Travel + Leisure, Discover, Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and The New Yorker. A graduate of Yale, Lord was for twelve years a syndicated political cartoonist and columnist based at Newsday. She teaches in the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC.
12 noon
Susan Isaacs- fiction, Goldberg Variations,: a Novel
The ultimate novel of family dysfunction from New York Times bestselling author Susan Isaacs, combining her trademark sass and wit, her distinctive characters, with reflections on faith, family, and inheritance that both entertain and enlighten.
Gloria Garrison nee Goldberg isn’t getting any younger. At seventy-nine, it’s time for her to plan for the future of Glory, Inc., the Santa Fe-based beauty makeover business that Gloria has grown from zilch into an eleven-million-a-year bonanza.
But now Gloria has alienated her former business partner and chosen successor. Who will take over Glory? Gloria’s never been big on family and wrote them all out of her will, but suddenly she must contemplate her three grandkids as possible candidates.
There’s twenty-nine-year-old Daisy, aNew Yorkstory editor for a movie studio. Her brother, twenty-seven-year-old Matt, does sports PR. He can charm his way around ball players, the press, and a flurry of women. And there’s gutsy Raquel, who at age twenty-five is laboring away as a Legal Aid lawyer. She’s Catholic and a Goldberg and proud of it.
When Gloria sends business-class tickets to tempt the three grandkids for a visit, they couldn’t be more surprised. Stranger still is the revelation that one of them and only one, may be offered the chance to inherit Glory.
Always sassy, smart, and wickedly witty, Susan Isaacs is at her formidable best in a novel that is both hilariously funny and a deeply moving tale of family, faith, and reconciliation.
Susan Isaacs was born in Brooklyn and educated at Queens College. Her novels include Compromising Positions, Close Relations, Almost Paradise, Any Place I Hang My Hat, and As Husbands Go. A recipient of the Writers for Writers Award and the John Steinbeck Award, Isaacs serves as chairman of the board of Poets & Writers, and is a past president of Mystery Writers of America. Her fiction has been translated into thirty languages. She lives on Long Island with her husband.
2pm
Eyal Press- Holocaust, Beautiful Souls- Saying No, Breaking Ranks and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times,
On the Swiss border with Austriain 1938, a police captain refuses to enforce a law barring Jewish refugees from entering his country. In the Balkans half a century later, a Serb from the war-blasted city of Vukovardefies his superiors in order to save the lives of Croats. At the height of the Second Intifada, a member of Israel’s most elite military unit informs his commander he doesn’t want to serve in the occupied territories.
Fifty years after Hannah Arendt examined the dynamics of conformity in her seminal account of the Eichmann trial, Beautiful Souls explores the flipside of the banality of evil, mapping out what impels ordinary people to defy the sway of authority and convention. Through the dramatic stories of unlikely resisters who feel the flicker of conscience when thrust into morally compromising situations, Eyal Press shows that the boldest acts of dissent are often carried out not by radicals seeking to overthrow the system but by true believers who cling with unusual fierceness to their convictions. Drawing on groundbreaking research by moral psychologists and neuroscientists, Beautiful Souls culminates with the story of a financial industry whistleblower who loses her job after refusing to sell a toxic product she rightly suspects is being misleadingly advertised. At a time of economic calamity and political unrest, this deeply reported work of narrative journalism examines the choices and dilemmas we all face when our principles collide with the loyalties we harbor and the duties we are expected to fulfill.
Eyal Press is an author and journalist based inNew York. His work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The Raritan Review and numerous other publications. A 2011 Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, he is the author of Absolute Convictions, and a past recipient of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.
4 pm- panel
Anne Marie OConnor-, The Lady In Gold- The Extraordinary Tale of the Gustav Klimt Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer,
The spellbinding story, part fairy tale, part suspense, of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, one of the most emblematic portraits of its time; of the beautiful, seductive Viennese Jewish salon hostess who sat for it; the notorious artist who painted it; the now vanished turn-of-the-century Vienna that shaped it; and the strange twisted fate that befell it.
The Lady in Gold, considered an unforgettable masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most recognizable paintings, made headlines all over the world when Ronald Lauder bought it for $135 million a century after Klimt, the most famous Austrian painter of his time, completed the society portrait.
Anne-Marie O’Connor, writer for The Washington Post, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, tells the galvanizing story of the Lady in Gold, Adele Bloch-Bauer, a dazzling Viennese Jewish society figure; daughter of the head of one of the largest banks in the Hapsburg Empire, head of the Oriental Railway, whose Orient Express went from Berlin to Constantinople; wife of Ferdinand Bauer, sugar-beet baron.
The Bloch-Bauers were art patrons, and Adele herself was considered a rebel of fin de siècle Vienna (she wanted to be educated, a notion considered “degenerate” in a society that believed women being out in the world went against their feminine “nature”). The author describes how Adele inspired the portrait and how Klimt made more than a hundred sketches of her—simple pencil drawings on thin manila paper.
And O’Connor writes of Klimt himself, son of a failed gold engraver, shunned by arts bureaucrats, called an artistic heretic in his time, a genius in ours.
She writes of the Nazis confiscating the portrait of Adele from the Bloch-Bauers’ grand palais; of the Austrian government putting the painting on display, stripping Adele’s Jewish surname from it so that no clues to her identity (nor any hint of her Jewish origins) would be revealed. Nazi officials called the painting, The Lady in Gold and proudly exhibited it in Vienna’s Baroque Belvedere Palace, consecrated in the 1930s as a Nazi institution.
The author writes of the painting, inspired by the Byzantine mosaics Klimt had studied in Italy, with their exotic symbols and swirls, the subject an idol in a golden shrine.
We see how, sixty years after it was stolen by the Nazis, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer became the subject of a decade-long litigation between the Austrian government and the Bloch-Bauer heirs, how and why the U.S. Supreme Court became involved in the case, and how the Court’s decision had profound ramifications in the art world.
A riveting social history; an illuminating and haunting look at turn-of-the-centuryVienna; a brilliant portrait of the evolution of a painter; a masterfully told tale of suspense. And at the heart of it, the Lady in Gold—the shimmering painting, and its equally irresistible subject, the fate of each forever intertwined.
Anne-Marie O’Connor attended VassarCollege, studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, and graduated from the Universityof California, Berkeley. She was a foreign correspondent for Reuters and a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times for twelve years, and has written extensively on the Klimt painting and the Bloch-Bauer family’s efforts to recover its art collection. Her articles have appeared inEsquire, The Nation, and The Christian Science Monitor. She currently writes for The Washington Post from Mexico City, where her husband, William Booth, is Post bureau chief.
7:30pm
Harold Kushner The Book of Job- when Bad Things Happened to a good Person,
From one of our most trusted spiritual advisers, a thoughtful, illuminating guide to that most fascinating of biblical texts, the book of Job, and what it can teach us about living in a troubled world—by far, Harold S. Kushner’s most important and commercial book since When Bad Things Happen To Good People.
The story of Job is one of unjust things happening to a good man. Yet after losing everything, Job—though confused, angry, and questioning God—refuses to reject his faith, although he challenges some central aspects of it, and is rewarded with abundant good fortune. Rabbi Kushner examines the questions raised by Job’s experience, questions that have challenged wisdom-seekers and worshippers for centuries. What kind of God permits such bad things to happen to good people? Why does He test his followers? Can a deeply good God be all-powerful? Rooted in the text, the critical tradition that surrounds it, and his own profoundly moral thinking, Kushner’s study gives us the book of Job as a lodestone for our time, teaching us about what can and cannot be controlled, about the power of faith when all seems dark, and about our ability to find God where we look for him.
HAROLD S. KUSHNER is rabbi laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, having served that congregation for twenty-four years. He is best known as the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In 1995, he was honored by the Christophers, a Roman Catholic organization, as one of fifty people who have made the world a better place in the past half century, and in 1999, the national organizationReligion in American Life honored him as their clergyman of the year. This is his thirteenth book.
Thurs Nov 8- JCC
9am
Lisa Levine
Yoga Shalom
Yoga Shalom is a unique worship experience that brings together body, mind, and spirit for an extraordinary prayer service. Combining the two powerful spiritual disciplines of Jewish worship and yoga practice, Yoga Shalom leads to deeper understandings of both, or as author Lisa Levine writes of her initial forays into yoga as a cantorial student, I learned to be more present in my prayers and meditations so I could better pray with and on behalf of my congregation. Yoga Shalom can be adapted and the postures customized for your congregation, studio, or private practice, and can be done in the community of a class or in the privacy of your own home. As an alternative to the traditional prayer service, Yoga Shalom can engage and unite your professional staff, lay leadership, and community. Whether you have no yoga experience or have been practicing for years, and regardless of your age or abilities, Yoga Shalom will help you relax your body, calm your mind, and nurture your spirit. Features: Detailed, easy-to-follow instructions Dozens of photographs Advanced, gentle, and chair modifications for each posture sequence 17-track CD to accompany your practice, featuring the music of well-known Jewish artists Craig Taubman, Jeff Klepper, Lisa Levine, and many more Full-length DVD of the complete practice
Lisa is the Cantor of Temple Shalom in Chevy ChaseMaryland
Lisa studies and teaches yoga and is the creator and author of “Yoga Shalom” a unique Jewish embodiment-of-prayer worship Book/DVD/CD. It has been well received at CAJE, ACC/GTM and numerous URJ Biennials as well as the URJ, MAC and WRJ Regional Conferences, The Routes Conference, and the Washington Jewish Arts Festival. Yoga Shalom has recently been published by URJ Press and is receiving rave reviews from around the country.
10am
Ken Druck – The Real Rules of Life: Balancing Life’s Terms with Your Own
We are brought up to believe a certain set of rules: The early bird gets the worm. Slow and steady wins the race. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Good things happen to good people. Keep your faith, work hard, and all your dreams will come true.
But then we grow up. We learn that life isn’t really fair. There are no fairy godmothers, and not everything works out in the end, no matter how good we have been or how hard we’ve tried.
Why, then, are these myths perpetuated? Because clichés and over-simple recipes for living provide a soothing way to manage our daily lives without confronting the harsh reality that some parts of our lives are out of our control.
For several decades, Ken Druck has been willing to stand up and write about what we have hidden from ourselves for so long: we need to confront life as it is, not as we want it to be. We cannot magically wish things into reality. We cannot expect happiness or success to manifest from daily affirmations. By embracing the real rules of life, we discover life’s terms and learn to balance them with our own, preventing costly psychological debts and developing the life skills, underlying wisdom, and emotional freedom essential for fuller, richer lives.
This book will resonate with what readers know to be true about how life really is. Readers will discover themselves in vibrant teaching stories from the front lines of Dr. Druck’s pioneering work with individuals, families, communities, leaders, and cutting-edge organizations. They will push the refresh button on long-held myths and limitations, turning them into empower truths, redirecting their lives in much more effective and purposeful ways, and reinvigorating the pursuit of their dream.
Ken Druck, Ph.D., is one of the nation’s pioneers in personal transformation, having broken fresh ground in male psychology, executive coaching, organizational consulting, parent effectiveness, healing after loss, and, most recently, the art of turning adversity into opportunity. Druck Enterprises, Inc. (DEI) is a leading coaching, consulting, and team-building firm with a broad base of clients including Microsoft, Pfizer, IBM, the San Diego Union Tribune, and the YMCA.
Since founding The Jenna Druck Center in 1996, “Dr. Ken” has become a lifeline for thousands of families who have suffered a loss. He is often called upon to assist in tragedies such as 9/11, Columbine, and Hurricane Katrina.
Ken has appeared on national television networks including CNN and MSNBC. He’s been featured on numerous radio shows and in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Los Angeles Times. Ken recently cofounded and serves on the nation’s first community editorial board at the San Diego Union Tribune where he is a frequent (and outspoken) editorial contributor.
In recent years, Ken has been the recipient of the Visionary Leadership, Distinguished Contribution in Psychology, andFamily Advocate awards. He is a standing member of the Transformational Leadership Council (www.transformationalleadershipcouncil.com) and a regular contributor to several global leadership initiatives.
Edie Lutnick- An Unbroken Bond- The Untold Story of how the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald Familes Faced the Tragedy of 9/11 and Beyond
On September 11th, 658 men and women at Cantor Fitzgerald found themselves trapped together inOneWorldTradeCenter. None would make it out alive. Among them was Edie Lutnick’s brother Gary, whom she had raised when their parents died at an early age. This is the story of the victims, the families and how they came together bonded by a tragic fate. But the story doesn’t end there. In the aftermath of the attacks, Edie answered the call from her other brother, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, to create a fund for the firm’s families who had lost loved ones. Over the past decade Edie and Howard have found themselves in a fight to not just give aid and comfort to the larger Cantor family, but also to honor the memory of countless victims. What they weren’t expecting was to find a barrage of issues in their way from political jockeying to class biases. This is the powerful, sometimes infuriating and ultimately heartrending story of the mission to fulfill an important legacy, and give meaning to the lives of the victims of 9/11.
EDITH LUTNICK, ESQ Edie Lutnick is a Co-founder, Officer, and the Executive Director of The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, a 501 (c) 3 not for profit charity established September 14, 2001 to address the short and long term needs of victims of terrorism, natural disasters and emergencies. Under Ms. Lutnick’s leadership The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund has raised and distributed over 180 million dollars to over 800 families of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has been instrumental in assisting them to heal. Post 9/11 Ms. Lutnick has emerged as a strong advocate and family leader not only on behalf of The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund families, but of all 9/11 victims’ families representing their positions on issues of import. Ms. Lutnick is a respected voice on a multitude of 9/11 advisory groups including the September 11th National Memorial and Museum and the Port Authority. Prior to September 11, 2001 and beginning in 1983, Ms. Lutnick practiced Labor Law. In 1991 she started her own practice, to which she added a partner, forming Lutnick & Swomley in 1998. Ms Lutnick turned her practice over to her partners in the wake of 9/11 in order to devote her energies full time to the 9/11 community. Ms Lutnick holds a JD and MBA (1982) from SyracuseUniversityand a BS from the Universityof Rhode Island(1980). In addition to sitting on the Board of Directors of The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, Ms. Lutnick is on the Board of Directors of My Good Deed. She is also an Honorary Board Member of A Caring Hand, The Billy Esposito Foundation.
12noon
Jonathan Tropper- One Last Thing Before I Go
The bestselling author of This Is Where I Leave You returns with a hilarious and heart-rending tale about one familiy’s struggle to reconnect.
You don’t have to look very hard at Drew Silver to see that mistakes have been made. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. He lives in theVersailles, an apartment building filled almost exclusively with divorced men like him, and makes a living playing in wedding bands. His ex-wife, Denise, is about to marry a guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down.
So when he learns that his heart requires emergency, lifesaving surgery, Silver makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to use what little time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment, even if that moment isn’t destined to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving.
With the wedding looming and both Silver and Casey in crisis, this broken family struggles to come together, only to risk damaging each other even more. One Last Thing Before I Go is Jonathan Tropper at his funny, insightful, heartbreaking best.
Jonathan Tropper is the New York Times bestselling author of five previous novels; Plan B, The Book of Joe, Everything Changes, How To Talk to a Widower, and This Is Where I Leave You. His books have been translated into over twenty languages. He is also a screenwriter, and the co-creator and executive producer of the HBO/Cinemax television show Banshee, premiering in 2013.
2pm
Racelle Rosett- Moving Waters
A television producer who moonlights as a cantor, and an actress who leaves her husband fro their nanny and enters a mikvah to mark the transition, a young widow who gets her hair colored to prepare for the unveiling of her husband’s gravestone-in her debut collection Moving Waters, award winning write Racelle Rosett explores the unexpected role of ancient ritual as it informs the lives of members of a reform Jewish community in Hollywood
Racelle Rosett is the winner of both the Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Prize for Jewish short fiction and the Lilith Fiction Prize. Her work has also appeared in Tikkun, Ploughshares, the New Vilna Review, Jewish Fiction, the Santa Monica Review, and Zeek. As a television writer she won the WGA award for thirtysomething. She lives inLos Angeles with her husband and two sons.
4pm
Matti Friedman- The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession ,Faith and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible
In an age when physical books matter less and less, here is a thrilling story about a book that meant everything. This true-life detective story unveils the journey of a sacred text—the tenth-century annotated bible known as the Aleppo Codex—from its hiding place in a Syrian synagogue to the newly founded state of Israel. Based on Matti Friedman’s independent research, documents kept secret for fifty years, and personal interviews with key players, the book proposes a new theory of what happened when the codex left Aleppo, Syria, in the late 1940s and eventually surfaced in Jerusalem, mysteriously incomplete.
The codex provides vital keys to reading biblical texts. By recounting its history, Friedman explores the once vibrant Jewish communities in Islamic lands and follows the thread into the present, uncovering difficult truths about how the manuscript was taken to Israel and how its most important pages went missing. Along the way, he raises critical questions about who owns historical treasures and the role of myth and legend in the creation of a nation.
7:30pm
Rich Cohen- – The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King
When Samuel Zemurray arrived inAmericain 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house inNew Orleanssixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of theUnited States: proof thatAmericais the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. InLatin America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind.
Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an indomitable will to succeed. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo, or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. Starting with nothing but a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments, from feuding with Huey Long to working with the Dulles brothers, Zemurray emerges as an unforgettable figure, connected to the birth of modern American diplomacy, public relations, business, and war—a monumental life that reads like a parable of the American dream.
Rich Cohen is a New York Times bestselling author as well as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. He has written seven books, including Tough Jews, Israel Is Real, and the widely acclaimed memoir Sweet and Low. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, and Best American Essays. He lives inConnecticut with his wife, three sons, and dog.
Fri. Nov 9- JCC
10am
Lisa Klug – Hot Mameleh: The Ultimate Guide for Every Woman of the Tribe
Jewish women are legend: the expert mavens, the wack-job meshuggeners, the “your-business-is-my-business” yentas, and all the others keeping you well entertained, well loved, and well fed. We know them. Now we can become them. Hot Mamalah: The Ultimate Guide for Every Woman of the Tribe is the Jewish woman’s first mock-you-manual. This hilarious lifestyle guide both parodies and celebrates the strengths, idiosyncrasies, challenges, and triumphs of Jewish women in four chapters. Spoofing a menu, there are the cocktails, appetizers, entrees, and desserts of life–with humorous essays, witty recipes, and almost 300 images, including original illustrations.
Hot Mamalah is much more than an appetizer to your own happiness. It’s an appetite for living, for having fun, and having chutzpah. It’s about feeding yourself, your family, your friends, and your fantasies. It’s about playing by your own rules, speaking your mind, looking fine, and saving a dime. It’s about being sexy, dynamic, and audacious. It’s about throwing a party wherever you go and celebrating whoever you are with all the mojo of the boldly beautiful who came before you, dishing up one over-the-top delectable at a time.
If you like being a Jewish woman–and let’s face it, who doesn’t?–you’ll love this book. Give in to your higher self, your greater self, your more flamboyant self with Hot Mamalah. It’s the greatest innovation since pink leopard print.
Award-winning journalist Lisa Alcalay Klug has reported for the New York Times, Forward, Jerusalem Post, Associated Press, JTA, Los Angeles Times and Israel Broadcast Authority TV, among many other outlets. Her bestselling book, Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe, was a National Jewish Book Awards Finalist. A humorist, slam poet, and popular public speaker, Lisa has presented at more than 100 venues throughout North America, Europe andIsrael.
12noon
Helene Aylon – Whatever Is Contained Must Be Released: My Jewish Orthodox Girlhood, My Life as a Feminist Artist
Helène Aylon was a good Jewish girl raised in orthodoxBrooklyn, married to a rabbi, and mother of two when her world split apart. A widow at thirty, she broke free of tradition to become an eco-feminist artist whose work deals in transgressive images about war and peace, women’s bodies, women and god, and the deeply religious world that continues to influence her work to this day.
This memoir is a charming dash through the years of a structured orthodox life and the artistic life that freed her to question the misogyny of her beloved religion. It is also a tell-all about the art world, with fascinating details about luminaries such as Ana Mendieta, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, and Betty Parsons.
Examples of Aylon’s work included are her early doors for the Jewish chapel at JFK airport, her peace pillowcases (including one worn by Grace Paley), and her current search for the links between feminism and Judaism.
Helène Aylon is a visual, conceptual, and installation artist and eco-feminist whose work has been exhibited at theWhitneyMuseum and the Jewish Museum inNew York, theAldrichMuseum inConnecticut, and theHammerMuseum inLos Angeles, among many others. She has upcoming exhibitions at theAndyWarholMuseum inPittsburgh and the National Museum of American Jewish History inPhiladelphia. Aylon turned eighty this year.
Helène Ayelon: Helène Aylon is a visual, conceptual, installation performance artist and eco-feminist whose art has been exhibited at theWhitneyMuseuminNew York; the Jewish Museum inNew York; The Aldrich Museum inConnecticut; theHammerMuseuminLos Angeles, among many others. She has upcoming exhibitions at theAndyWarholMuseuminPittsburghand the National Museum of American Jewish History inPhiladelphia. She has known and worked with many major artists and writers of the past forty years, including Ana Mendieta, Grace Paley, Ad Reinhard, and Mark Rothko. She continues to create new art and exhibit throughout theUSand elsewhere as she turns eighty this year.
Sat Nov 10- JCC
7:30pm
Dan Raviv — SPIES AGAINST ARMAGEDDON is a powerful, vivid history of Israel’s intelligence services — led by the respected and feared Mossad — from the country’s independence in 1948, right up to the current Middle East crises. Chapter 1 is titled “Stopping Iran,” focused on nuclear threats, and then readers are taken through the entire history. The authors wrote a national best seller, EVERY SPY A PRINCE, about Israeli intelligence, in 1990. This non-fiction — which reads like a thriller — brings us to the dangerous challenges and innovative solutions of today. Best-selling spy novelist Daniel Silva writes: “Buyer beware: Once you crack the cover of Spies Against Armageddon, you won’t be able to put it down. It is much more than simply the most authoritative book ever written about Israeli intelligence. It is storytelling and drama of the highest order.”
Dan Raviv is a Washington-based correspondent for CBS News and host of the national radio magazine Weekend Roundup. New book in July 2012: SPIES AGAINST ARMAGEDDON: INSIDE ISRAEL’S SECRET WARS. Most of his books are co-authored with Yossi Melman, and Dan wrote COMIC WARS about the Marvel Comics bankruptcy and renaissance. An earlier book with Yossi, EVERY SPY A PRINCE, was a national best seller; and they have a book about U.S.-Israel relations, FRIENDS IN DEED. Now they are again writing about the history of Israeli espionage — and howIsraelintends to stopIranfrom developing nuclear weapons. The book is largely aimed at Kindle readers — because if something big happens in theMiddle East, the authors will update the e-book immediately. Again, the title: SPIES AGAINST ARMAGEDDON: INSIDE ISRAEL’S SECRET WARS.
9:00pm
Justin Halpern — I Suck at Girls
“Human beings fear the unknown. So, whatever’s freaking you out, grab it by the balls and say hello. Then it ain’t the unknown anymore and it ain’t scary. Or I guess it could be a shitload scarier.”
Fans of the #1 bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says will recognize the always-patient voice of Justin Halpern’s dad as it crackles through the pages of this hysterical new book. The story begins when Justin takes his dad out to lunch to announce that he’s decided to propose to his girlfriend.
“You’ve been dating her for four years,” his dad replies. “It ain’t like you found a parallel fucking universe.”
But eventually he gives Justin some advice: that he should take a day off and think back over everything he’s learned in life about women, relationships, and himself before making his decision. And that’s just what Justin does—revisiting everything from his disastrous childhood crushes to the night he finally lost his virginity while working as a dishwasher at Hooters.
I Suck at Girls is full of his dad’s patented brand of wisdom. But it’s also full of new characters just as funny as his dad—from his brother, who provides insights into wedding night rituals (“You stand in one corner of the room, and she stands in the other. You each take off one piece of clothing at a time”) to his first boss, who warns Justin to man up: “That’s what a man does. He takes his shots and then he scrubs the shit out of some dishes.” The result is a pilgrim’s progress through the landscape of sex and love—by one of the funniest writers at work today.
In the summer of 2009, Justin Halpern created a Twitter account as a way to archive his father’s no-holds-barred, expletive-ridden words of wisdom. Within a month, @shitmydadsays became an Internet sensation. More than 2.5 million people currently follow Sam Halpern’s musings on Twitter and Facebook alone.
Justin’s first book, Sh*t My Dad Says (HarperCollins / ItBooks), a collection of essays about growing up with his unapologetically honest father, is a #1 New York Times bestseller.
Justin is also the creator of $#*! My Dad Says (WarnerBros/CBS), a sitcom starring William Shatner, Nicole Sullivan, Will Sasso, and Jonathan Sadowski. He serves as the show’s co-executive producer along with his writing partner Patrick Schumacker.
Justin currently splits his time betweenLos Angeles and his parents’ home inSan Diego.
Sun Nov 11- JCC
10am
Alex Kershaw – The Liberator-One World WarII Soldier’s 500- Day Odessey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau
The true story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War: the battlefield odyssey of a maverick U.S. Army officer and his infantry unit as they fought for over five hundred days to liberate Europe – from the invasion of Italy to the gates of Dachau.
From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared – the entire time it took to liberate Europe – no regiment saw more action, and no single platoon, company, or battalion endured worse, than the ones commanded by Felix Sparks, who had entered the war as a greenhorn second lieutenant of the 157th “Eager for Duty” Infantry Regiment of the 45th “Thunderbird” Division. Sparks and his fellow Thunderbirds fought longest and hardest to defeat Hitler, often against his most fanatical troops, when the odds on the battlefield were even and the fortunes of the Allies hung in the balance – and when the difference between defeat and victory was a matter of character, not tactics or armor.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Sparks and dozens of his men, as well as over five years of research in Europe and in archives across the US, historian Alex Kershaw masterfully recounts one of the most inspiring and heroic journeys in military history. Over the course of four amphibious invasions, Sparks rose from captain to colonel as he battled from the beaches of Sicily through the mountains of Italy and France, ultimately enduring bitter and desperate winter combat against the diehard SS on the Fatherland’s borders. Though he lost all of his company to save the Allied beach-head at Anzio and an entire battalion in the dark forests of the Vosges, Sparks miraculously survived the long bloody march across Europe and was selected to lead a final charge to Bavaria to hunt down Adolf Hitler.
In the dying days of the Third Reich, Sparks and his men crossed the last great barrier in the West, the Rhine, only to experience some of the most intense street fighting and close combat suffered by Americans in WWII. When they finally arrived at the gates of Dachau, Hitler’s first and most notorious concentration camp, the Thunderbirds confronted scenes that robbed the mind of reason. With victory within grasp, Sparks confronted the ultimate test of his humanity: after all he had faced, could he resist the urge to wreak vengeance on the men who had caused untold suffering and misery?
Written with the narrative drive and vivid immediacy of Kershaw’s previous bestselling books about American infantrymen in WWII, The Liberator is a story for the ages, an intensely human and dramatic account of one of history’s greatest warriors and his unheralded role inAmerica’s finest achievement – the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Alex Kershaw is the New York Times bestselling author of several books on World War II, including The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter. He lives inWilliamstown,Massachusetts.
12noon
Address unknown — Staged reading
ADDRESS UNKNOWN is the novel published just before the outbreak of World War II, written as a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer living inSan Franciscoand his business partner who had returned toGermanyin 1932. It is credited with exposing, early on, the dangers of Nazism to the American public.
First published in 1938 in Story magazine as a wake-up call warning Americans of the true nature of the Nazi menace, this punchy epistolary tale enacts a stunning drama of friendship, betrayal and vengeance. In 1932, San Francisco art-gallery owner Max Eisenstein, a Jew who grew up in pre-Nazi Germany, bids farewell to his longtime friend and business partner Martin Schulse, who returns with his family to Munich, where he becomes a Nazi. Through their letters to one another, which quickly move from warmth to a chilling disregard, we watch as the once-liberal Martin, seduced by grandiose visions of German destiny and by the rantings of “our Glorious Leader,” vents an anti-Semitism that he tortuously rationalizes. Max, alarmed by reports of anti-Jewish persecution in Germany, asks Martin to look after his actress sister, Griselle, who is performing in Berlin. When she is murdered by Nazi storm troopers after being refused refuge at the Schulse house, Max takes revenge through a clever epistolary ploy that provides a satisfying surprise ending. Nearly 60 years after its initial publication, Kressman’s story serves not only as a reminder of Nazi horrors but as a cautionary tale in light of current racial, ethnic and nationalist intolerance.
Copyright Publishers Weekly 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Published to acclaim and impressive sales?50,000 copies?in 1938, this is one of the earliest pieces of Holocaust fiction. The epistolary novel reveals the rising tide of evil inGermanythrough the correspondence between two friends, one of whom is living inSan Francisco, the other inBerlin.
2pm
Eleanor Ehrenkranz
The Wisdom of Modern Jewish Poetry, 1960-
This book is a compilation of recent Yiddish, Israeli and American-Jewish poetry in one compact volume. “Eleanor Ehrenkranz’s Jewish poetry anthology encapsulates the agony of the Middle East in distilled images that pierce the heart” -Tovah Feldshuh, actress “I have to admit that I don’t usually like poetry . . . But ever since I first read it, I have made an exception for Yankev Glatshteyn’s Praying the Sunset Prayer, which expertly performs what I believe to be the function of art: to suggest to us why life is worth living” -Dara Horn, novelist “I loved reading Robert Pinsky’s poem The Night Game. It is wonderfully wise and evocative, characteristically American and Jewish. I see, in Pinsky’s words, the limitless opportunities of America through the lens of America’s game, baseball” -Senator Joseph I. Lieberman “Rachel Korn’s I Am Soaked Th rough By You is a beautifully economical history of love, soaked through with passion, tenderness and gratitude” -Judith Viorst, poet and novelist
Dr. Eleanor Ehrenkranz is a professor atPaceUniversity, where she teaches Critical Reading and Writing about Film. She received her doctorate in English fromNew YorkUniversityat which she also taught. She also spent 25 years teaching English in secondary schools, where she founded the first extracurricular Shakespeare Club. In addition to teaching, she has lectured on Jewish literature at synagogues and JCC’s throughout theNew Yorkarea, has been a guest lecturer for Jewish Family Services of Greenwich as well as for the UJA Federation and the Stamford Federation. And she has taught at LimmudNew York. At present, she writes reviews for Jewish Book World. Dr. Ehrenkranz lives inScarsdale, has four children and several grandchildren.
4:00pm
Jonathan Sarna – When General Grant Expelled the Jews
A riveting account of General Ulysses S. Grant’s decision, in the middle of the Civil War, to order the expulsion of all Jews from the territory under his command, and the reverberations of that decision on Grant’s political career, on the nascent American Jewish community, and on the American political process.
On December 17, 1862, just weeks before Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, General Grant issued what remains the most notorious anti-Jewish order by a government official in American history. His attempt to eliminate black marketeers by targeting for expulsion all Jews “as a class” unleashed a firestorm of controversy that made newspaper headlines and terrified and enraged the approximately 150,000 Jews then living in the United States, who feared the importation of European antisemitism onto American soil.
Although the order was quickly rescinded by a horrified Abraham Lincoln, the scandal came back to haunt Grant when he ran for president in 1868. Never before had Jews become an issue in a presidential contest, and never before had they been confronted so publicly with the question of how to balance their “American” and “Jewish” interests. Award-winning historian Jonathan D. Sarna gives us the first complete account of this little-known episode—including Grant’s subsequent apology, his groundbreaking appointment of Jews to prominent positions in his administration, and his unprecedented visit to theland ofIsrael. Sarna sheds new light on one of our most enigmatic presidents, on the Jews of his day, and on the ongoing debate between group loyalty and national loyalty that continues to roil American political and social discourse.
Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History. He has written, edited, or co-edited more than twenty books and is best known for the acclaimed American Judaism: A History, which received the Jewish Book Council’s Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award in 2004. He lives in Massachusetts.
The PBS documentary Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray, which features Jonathan Sarna, explores the hidden stories of American Jews during the Civil War. Presented by the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, it is available for purchase on DVD at www.shapell.org.
7:30pm
Daniel Gordis- The Promise of Israel: Why Its Seemingly Greatest Weakness is Actually is Greatest Strength
Israel’s critics in the West insist that no country founded on a single religion or culture can stay democratic and prosperous—but they’re wrong. In The Promise of Israel, Daniel Gordis points out thatIsrael has defied that conventional wisdom. It has provided its citizens infinitely greater liberty and prosperity than anyone expected, faring far better than any other young nation.Israel’s “magic” is a unique blend of democracy and tradition, of unabashed particularism coupled to intellectual and cultural openness. GivenIsrael’s success, it would make sense for many other countries, fromRwanda toAfghanistan and evenIran, to look at how they’ve done it. In fact, rather than seeking to destroyIsrael, the Palestinians would serve their own best interests by trying to copy it.
- Takes many of the most compelling arguments againstIsraeland turns them completely on their heads, undoing liberals with a more liberal argument and the religious with a more devout argument
- Puts forth an idea that is as convincing as it is shocking—thatIran’s clerics and the Taliban should want to be more likeIsrael
- Written by Daniel Gordis, the author of the National Jewish Book Award winner, Saving Israel
- Daniel Gordis has been called “one ofIsrael’s most thoughtful observers” (Alan Dershowitz) and “a writer whose reflections are consistently as intellectually impressive as they are moving” (Cynthia Ozick)
Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President and Koret Distinguished Fellow at theShalemCenterinJerusalem. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and currents inIsrael, Dr. Gordis was the founding dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at theUniversityofJudaism, the first rabbinical college on the West Coast of theUnited States. Dr. Gordis joined Shalem in 2007 to help foundIsrael’s first liberal arts college, after spending nine years as vice president of the Mandel Foundation inIsraeland director of its Leadership Institute.
Certain to generate controversy and debate, The Promise of Israel is one of the most interesting and original books aboutIsrael in years.
Since moving to Israelin 1998, Dr. Gordis has written and lectured throughout the world on Israeli society and the challenges facing the Jewish state. His writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, the NewRepublic, the New York Times Magazine, Moment, Tikkun, and Conservative Judaism. His book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish State Can Win a Way That May Never End, received the 2009 National Jewish Book Award.
Gordis’ next book, The Promise of Israel: Why Its Seemingly Greatest Weakness is Actually its Greatest Strength, will be published by Wiley in August 2012.
Dr. Gordis received his B.A. fromColumbiaCollege (Magna Cum Laude), a Masters Degree and Rabbinic Ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and his Ph.D. from theUniversity ofSouthern California.
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Preceding provided by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture