THE BOOK OF LIFE - Celebrate Jewish Book Month 2024

5:50PM Nov 17, 2024

Speakers:

Heidi Rabinowitz

Arielle Landau

Keywords:

Jewish Book Month

Fanny Goldstein

children's book

Jewish literature

Celebrate Jewish Books

community support

book events

virtual events

antisemitism hotline

Jewish authors

book recommendations

literary events

Yiddish writers

Shabbat dinner

Lehrhaus

[COLD OPEN] Hi everyone. This is Arielle Landau. I'll be joining you soon on The Book of Life podcast. I'd like to dedicate my episode to Fanny Goldstein, who started Jewish Book Week, now known as Jewish Book Month.

And I hear that Rich Michelson is doing a picture book biography of her. So that's awesome!

He is. He has a children's book coming out in 2025 about Fanny Goldstein's childhood, and it's going to come out right in time for our 100th anniversary of Jewish Book Month.

[MUSIC, INTRO] This is The Book of Life, a show about Jewish kidlit, mostly. I'm Heidi Rabinowitz. Here's a bonus episode for you in honor of Jewish Book Month, which is marking its 99th year. Arielle Landau, the program coordinator at the Jewish Book Council, joins me to talk about the Council's special campaign to celebrate Jewish books and how you can participate. And don't forget to check out The Book of Life on social media for daily book recommendations throughout Jewish Book Month, November, 24 through December 24, 2024. In light of the state of the world, this year's theme is books that model activism. Find links to everything at BookOfLifePodcast.com... and happy Jewish Book Month!

Arielle, can you introduce yourself and explain a little bit what the Jewish Book Council is and what you do there?

I am a program manager at Jewish Book Council, which is a not for profit dedicated to bringing Jewish literature to the world, if that's through editorial, book awards, book events, et cetera.

We're here to talk about Jewish Book Month. It's the 99th anniversary this year of Jewish Book Month. But what is Jewish Book Month?

So Jewish Book Month started in 1925 by Bostonian librarian Fanny Goldstein. Jewish Book Month is the month leading up to Hanukkah, which is fairly late this year, as all of our Jewish holidays are. So it's, November 24 is the very first day of Jewish Book Month to December 24.

It began as a week long celebration to really teach her community about Judaism. She found that a lot of kids coming into her library and community members knew very little about Jewish traditions and the Jewish community. So it initially started as a way to educate and promote Judaism and our culture, and it has since grown into a month long celebration. It's now mainly a celebration for Jewish communities, to celebrate our Jewish literature. So it's less forward facing in the sense that we're here to celebrate us and celebrate the power of Jewish literature and Jewish authors within our community.

Well, it's interesting that you describe it that way, because it seems like this year we're maybe going back a little bit to that tradition of being more outward facing. Can you talk about the Celebrate Jewish Books campaign?

Yeah, I'd love to. This year for 99th anniversary of Jewish Book Month, we are launching a Celebrate Jewish Books, Support Jewish Authors messaging campaign. We want to uplift as many Jewish authors as possible, and we want to get as many community members on board for the messaging campaign. So for those of you who are listening, feel free to visit JewishBookCouncil.org and sign up to become a partner organization. But the goal really is to lean into the Jewish joy and really lean into the excitement of Jewish literature, especially in light of the current climate that we are in.

So you mentioned the current climate. What are some of the challenges facing Jewish literature and Jewish authors right now that maybe make it more necessary than ever to have a campaign like this?

We've been seeing a lot of cancelations, panelists being canceled, events being canceled. We've been seeing review bombings on Goodreads. We're seeing a lot of book awards being turned into political protests, we could call it. It's an isolating time for a lot of Jewish authors, and so I think it's more important now than ever to show our community support and show that they're just as important as every other author, and we still need their work, and we still need them to write, and we still need them to tell the collective Jewish story.

Tell us some ways that we can actually go about celebrating Jewish books. Give us some tips.

so

So many ways to celebrate Jewish books! I mean, I encourage everyone to buy a Jewish book or buy a book from your favorite Jewish author. You know, it's a very broad definition of what makes a Jewish book. Encourage your schools to host book fairs and book talks, or your local bookstore to have a Jewish Book Month table on display leading up to Hanukkah. Attend a few literary events in your community. We're having virtual events throughout the month of December. December 4, we're hosting a middle school event with Ruth Behar, and she'll be talking about her new book Across So Many Seas and do a few activities with the students. On December 11, we are having a third through fifth grade event with Bonnie Goldberg, who wrote Doña Gracia Saved Worlds. She'll be doing a few activities with the students, along with a short presentation. And then on December 17, we're having our pre-K through second grade event with Sarah Mlynowski, who wrote Dragon for Hanukkah.

Any school can sign up for these?

Any school can sign up for them. The event registration is on our website, JewishBookCouncil.org.

The Jewish Book Council has invited other organizations to be partners in the Celebrate Jewish Books campaign. Are there any activities or events that some of your partners are doing that you would like to shout out?

The Yiddish Book Center, online or in Amherst, Massachusetts, is asking everyone to come in and explore thousands of works by Yiddish writers. For anyone who is interested in hosting a Jewish Book Month themed Shabbat dinner, One Table, who is one of our partner organizations, is happy to help you host a Jewish Book Month Shabbat. Siddurim, or money for food, or just ways to connect people within your area... One Table will provide you with resources to host your own Shabbat dinner. Heidi, obviously, we have your podcast, which we're very excited about. And those, I would say, are my three highlights. Actually, I have one more. In the Boston area, Lehrhaus is opening their doors for anyone for a delicious meal and a good read throughout Jewish Book month as well.

Well, I'm excited to be included in your top examples! And then tell us some more about Lehrhaus.

Me too. And for anyone who would like Jewish Book Council to highlight activities that you are hosting in the area, please let us know, and we are happy to put it on our website. We're also going to launch a community calendar for Jewish Book Month.

I'll also mention, in terms of what people can do to celebrate: by the time this episode posts, this event will be in the past, but on November 20, I'm doing a virtual talk hosted by my local public library about Cheering On Jewish Books and ways that people can support Jewish literature. So I will have, if not the recording, I will definitely, at least have the handout available on my website afterwards, so people can check that out too for more suggestions of ways to support the literature.

What an amazing event to be a part of.

So Lehrhaus recently opened in the past, I want to say two or three years in Somerville, Massachusetts, which is a cultural Jewish center for young Jews to come together, to learn to study Torah, to eat. They host author events as well.

I took a look at the website of warehouse, and it seems like a combination of a JCC and a trendy restaurant. Would you say that's true?

Definitely a good way to describe it. Yeah, like a beer house. They have beer on tap, and they have game nights, and, yeah, it's a fun place for young professionals to come and learn.

That's great. I hope that they'll franchise that idea, because it would be wonderful to have one near me.

Oh, thank you. Are there any other projects of the Jewish Book Council that you would like to talk about?

There's a lot. I think I'll go back to when we were talking about the climate of today, and especially in the book world, when we are seeing a lot of events canceled and authors being blacklisted and open letters being posted around social media. Since October 7, Jewish Book Council has done an amazing job pivoting and really meeting the moment, and it's been incredible working at an organization that is able to do that. We've launched a reporting antisemitism hotline for anyone in the book world or in the publishing world who has experienced any antisemitism. Right now, we're just tracking to see what information we can gather. We're also hosting check ins and groups with MFA students, a lot of our younger students are really scared to go out into this world and publish in this world, especially because they're Jewish. Just launched a grant for Jewish writers, which will really be more of a pipeline. So anyone who is agented and has a book coming out that's either Jewish or on Jewish content, you could apply for this grant. And we've hosted a number of events that we've really never hosted before, like a Know Your Rights event partnered with the Brandeis Center and UJA. We did a virtual event with PEN America on how to be safe on social media. We're really trying our best to support authors where we can at this time. And also Network! A huge part of my role as a marketing program manager is to work with our JBC Network program, which is our marketing platform for Jewish authors.

Just to dig into that a little bit more, so the Jewish Book Council Network, from my understanding, is a way for Jewish authors to find venues where they can speak at book festivals or Jewish community centers or synagogues. Is that right?

Yeah, the best way to describe it is almost like an open casting call. So authors register and become a JBC Network author, and then we have a virtual conference in May where authors pitch their books for two minutes, which we know is very hard, to JCCs, Federation, synagogues, and that's how the communities decide which authors they want to bring in.

All right, very useful. Where can listeners learn more about the work of the Jewish Book Council and about the Celebrate Jewish books campaign?

Everyone can learn more about Jewish Book Council at our website, JewishBookCouncil.org. We also have an Instagram page and a Facebook group. And the Celebrate, you can find under our events tab on our website.

it's

It's Tikkun Olam Time. What action would you like to call listeners to take to help heal the world?

I'd encourage everyone to buy Jewish books and to continue supporting our Jewish authors.

Well, happy Jewish Book Month!

Happy Jewish Book Month!

Arielle Landau, thank you so much for speaking with me.

Thank you, Heidi, it's been a pleasure.

No, no.

[MUSIC, OUTRO] Say hi to Heidi at 561-206-2473 or bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com Check out our Book of Life podcast Facebook page, or our Facebook discussion group Jewish Kidlit Mavens. We are occasionally on Twitter too @bookoflifepod. Want to read the books featured on the show? Buy them through Bookshop.org/shop/bookoflife to support the podcast and independent bookstores at the same time. You can also help us out by becoming a monthly supporter through Patreon. Additional support comes from the Association of Jewish Libraries, which also sponsors our sister podcast, Nice Jewish Books, a show about Jewish fiction for adults. You'll find links for all of that and more at BookofLifePodcast.com Our background music is provided by the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band. Thanks for listening and happy reading!