Jewish Book Festival

Save the Date for the 2010 Jewish Book Festival from November 1-14!

For the past 22 years, The Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor has hosted the Jewish Book Festival in November.  The Book Festival offers a unique opportunity to hear from many talented authors on a variety of subjects during weekday Lunch & Learn events, evening events and on Sundays throughout the multi-day festival at the JCC.  Events are free and open to the public.   The event which is supported by many local community organizations and businesses, including the Fred and Ned Shure Endowment.

The authors and programs for this year's event includes...

Monday, November 1 – 7:30 p.m. – OPENING NIGHT
Joan Nathan – Quiches, Kugels and Couscous
Sponsored by: Temple Beth Emeth
Moderated by Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman’s Deli
Dessert Reception by Simply Scrumptious

What is Jewish cooking in France? In a journey that was a labor of love, Joan Nathan traveled the country to discover the answer and, along the way, unearthed a treasure trove of recipes and the often moving stories behind them. Nathan takes us into kitchens in Paris, Alsace, and the Loire Valley; she visits the bustling Belleville market in Little Tunis in Paris; she breaks bread with Jewish families around the observation of the Sabbath and the celebration of special holidays. All across France, she finds that Jewish cooking is more alive than ever: traditional dishes are honored, yet have acquired a certain French finesse. 

Joan Nathan, a University of Michigan alum, is the author of ten cookbooks including Jewish Cooking in America, which won both the James Beard Award and the IACP / Julia Child Cookbook of the Year Award in 1994.  She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and Tablet Magazine, among other publications.  She is the mother of three grown children and lives with her husband in Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, November 2 – Noon – TIKKUN OLAM EVENT
Marilyn Berger – This is a Soul: The Mission of Rick Hodes
Co-sponsored by: Beth Israel Congregation

This is a Soul is the story of a completely selfless man, Rick Hodes, who not only treats the sick, but has taken some twenty kids into his own home, nurturing and educating them.  Rick’s journey-from a childhood in an American suburb to a land of famine, to refugee camps following the Rwanda genocide, to centers for displaced persons in Kosovo, to Mother Theresa’s mission in Addis Ababa- is a tale of compassion and altruism rarely seen in this world.  Marilyn Berger went to Africa to write about Dr. Hodes, but while there, she became involved with the story. When she came upon a small, deformed, and malnourished boy begging on the street, she recognized immediately that he had the exact disease Rick could cure. The boy’s story— intertwined with Rick’s, and Marilyn’s as well—is unforgettable in its pathos and subtle humor

Marilyn Berger has been a journalist for more than forty years. She worked for Newsday, The Washington Post, NBC and public television where she is the moderator of The Advocates, a news anchor and presented a five-part interview of Lillian Hellman.  She is currently a contributing writer to the New York Times.   She is the widow of Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 Minutes.

Tuesday, November 2 – 7:30 p.m.
Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann – Gaming the World: How Sports are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture

Sports Matter.  This is self-evident to anyone who lives and dies according to the records of the Yankees, the Chicago Bulls, or Manchester United (to name but a few lightning rod teams), but what may not be quite as clear is how much sports matter on the global stage.  Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann draw back the curtain on global sports arguing that sports and its superstar players are “powerful force(s) of political and cultural change around the globe.”

Andrei Markovits is currently the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and the Karl W. Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author and editor of many books, scholarly articles, conference papers, book reviews and newspaper contributions in English and many foreign languages on topics as varied as German and Austrian politics, anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, social democracy, social movements, the European right and the European left.  Co-author Lars Rensmann is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

Lars Rensmann, DPhil, DAAD Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science came to Ann Arbor in the fall of 2006. He teaches in the areas of modern political theory, European integration & European comparative politics, and German politics. Rensmann is the author and editor of six books and has published widely on political theory and German & European politics in journals. He holds a doctoral degree (Dphil) with distinction (“summa cum laude”) from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Free University of Berlin. He is also Affiliate Professor at the University of Haifa and Permanent Fellow at the Moses Mendelssohn Center, University of Potsdam. He also held several other previous research and teaching appointments.

With its dense history of endless conflict and biblical events, Israel’s coastline is by far the most interesting hundred miles in the world.  Martin Fletcher, long-time NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv, has seen war, famine, killings and tragedy in his nearly 4 decades as a highly respected war correspondents and bureau chief.  In 2008, he took on a different assignment – a personal one – that changed the outlook of this veteran newsman in a way he never saw coming.  Instead of walking into a war zone, Martin Fletcher walked into the soul of a nation.  In his beautiful and touching new book, Walking Israel, Fletcher discovers the complexities of Middle Eastern life, and finds a little of himself, too.

Martin Fletcher began his Tel Aviv assignment in 1982 and took on the additional role of bureau chief in November 1990.  He has received five Emmy awards for his work on the first Palestinian uprising, the second Palestinian uprising, Rwanda, Kosovo and trauma medicine in Israel. He has received numerous other awards including the television Pulitzer, the DuPont from Columbia University, five Overseas Press Club awards, several Edward R. Murrows awards, a Hugo gold medal for a documentary on Israel which he shared with other NBC staffers, and an award from the Royal Society of Television in Britain.

9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. - Light continental breakfast and workshop with Linda Grekin, teacher, children's librarian and ECC grandparent.  Linda will work with adults on how to be great communicators with children through literacy.

10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. - ECC Preschoolers will be brought to this lounge and will be engaged by Laura Pershin Raynor. 

11:00 a.m. - Shabbat celebration

East West Mimesis follows the plight of German-Jewish humanists who escaped Nazi persecution by seeking exile in a Muslim-dominated society. Kader Konuk asks why philologists like Erich Auerbach found humanism at home in Istanbul at the very moment it was banished from Europe. She challenges the notion of exile as synonymous with intellectual isolation and shows the reciprocal effects of German émigrés on Turkey's humanist reform movement. By making literary critical concepts productive for our understanding of Turkish cultural history, the book provides a new approach to the study of East-West relations.

Sunday, November 7 – SPONSOR NIGHT

6:00 – 6:30 p.m. – Enjoy wine, hors d’oeuvres, meet the author and attend  book signing  
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. - Sponsor Reception
7:30 – 8:30 p.m. – Author Presentation (Free and Open to the Public)
Sam Hoffman – Old Jews Telling Jokes

Schtick happens. For five thousand years, God’s chosen people have cornered the market on knee-slappers, zingers, and knock-knock jokes. Now Old Jews Telling Jokes mines mothers, fathers, bubbies, and zaydes for comic gelt. What we get are jokes that are funnier than a pie in the punim.  With Borscht Belt gags from Brooklyn to Bel Air to Boca, Old Jews Telling Jokes is like chicken soup for your funny bone.  An intelligent yet hysterically funny celebration of Jewish language and culture based on the very popular website Old Jews Telling Jokes, this book features hilarious, irreverent, and sometimes bawdy jokes told by “old Jews” including Ed Koch and fascinating stories behind both the jokes and the tellers.

During a twenty year career in the New York film industry, Sam Hoffman has produced, directed or assistant directed numerous films, shorts, second units and commercials including:  The Royal Tenenbaums, School of Rock, The Producers Musical, Donnie Brasco, Dead Man Walking and Groundhog Day. In January of 2009, Hoffman partnered with Jetpack Media to launch OldJewsTellingJokes.com – a website devoted to video portraits of Old Jews Telling Jokes. Hoffman lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Monday, November 8 – Noon
Erica Brown -Confronting Scandal: How Jews Can Respond When Jews Do Bad Things
Sponsored by: Harlene and Henry Appelman

Madoff. Spitzer. Abramoff.  This is the first time in Jewish history that a former prime minister and a president of Israel have been convicted of crime.  Why are so many high-profile Jews in the media for the wrong reasons? How do we manage collective discomfort and shame?  How do we restore honor and dignity to our community by raising the ethical bar and adherence to it? Confronting Scandal looks back in Jewish history and forward in time to think about how we manage shame by association, how we air our dirty laundry and how we return to a higher purpose using Jewish texts, contemporary psychology and old-fashioned common sense.

Dr. Erica Brown is a Jewish educator and writer, winner of the Avi Chai Award and the 2009 Covenant Award for her innovative work in Jewish education.  She was a Jerusalem Fellow and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation and is the author of Inspired Jewish Leadership, a National Jewish Book Award finalist, Spiritual Boredom and co-author of The Case for Jewish People.  She works extensively with Jewish Federations and Jewish institutions across the country, running workshops on leadership and Jewish values.

Monday, November 8  -  7:30 p.m.  – BOOK CLUB NIGHT
Daniel Levin – The Last Ember
Sponsored by: Fran and Irwin Martin

The Last Ember is a pulse-pounding race to locate the menorah of Herod’s Temple.  With its immense symbolic ties to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it is an artifact of unimaginable power, one for which many have hunted-and even killed-in their attempts to obtain.  This search for a priceless artifact stolen from the Second Temple in Jerusalem becomes a race against time, terrorism, politics, and the past.  This fantastic story takes readers on a thrill ride around the world to confront not only history’s fragility, but also its resilience.

Daniel Levin earned his bachelor’s degree in Roman and Greek civilizations from the University of Michigan.  He graduated from Harvard Law School with honors and clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel.   He was a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome in 2004 and has practiced international law in New York City, where he is currently writing his next novel.

Tuesday, November 9 – Noon – KRISTALLNACHT COMMEMORATION DAY
Michael Hirsh – The Liberators

Based on extensive interviews with WWII veterans and rich with powerful, never-before-published eyewitness accounts, The Liberators puts the reader alongside the brave young U.S. soldiers, from their final march across Germany to V-E Day and beyond.  More than just an in-depth account of the liberation, though, this book reveals how deeply these young men were impacted by what they saw, their struggles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder long before it was recognized as a disorder, and how this life-altering experience has stayed with them to this very day. 

Michael Hirsh is a Vietnam combat veteran and the author of three previous military books, as well as the co-author (with Michael Schiavo) of the New York Times bestseller Terri: The Truth. During a forty-year career in broadcasting, he produced documentaries and specials for PBS, CBS, ABC, and HBO, receiving multiple awards, including the Peabody.

Tuesday, November 9 – 7:30 p.m. Film Showing
No. 4 Street of Our Lady
The #1 Film from the Ann Arbor Jewish Film Festival

This film tells the remarkable, yet little-known, story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust, while cleverly passing herself off as a Nazi sympathizer. On the eve of World War II, more than 6,000 Jews lived in Sokal, a small town in Eastern Poland, now part of Ukraine. By the end of the war, only about 30 had survived, half of them rescued by Halamajowa. For close to two years, she hid her Jewish neighbors in her tiny home and cooked and cared for them, right under the noses of German troops camped on her property as well as hostile neighbors. Two families were hidden in the hayloft of her pigsty, and one family in a hole dug under her kitchen floor. In the final months of the war, she also provided shelter to a German soldier who had defected – an act that nearly led to her execution. Even among the small minority of Poles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, Halamajowa's is by all accounts an unusual story, considering the number of people she rescued and the amount of time she fed and cared for them.

Wednesday, November 10 – Noon – LUNCH WITH THE AUTHORS
Sharon Pomerantz – Rich Boy
Jessica Jiji – Sweet Dates of Basra
Katherine Rosman – If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Reporter’s Notebook

Sharon Pomerantz- Rich Boy
Ten years in the making, Rich Boy is a sweeping novel of class, sexual rebellion, money and love.  Pomerantz's debut novel chronicles one man's journey from the blue-collar suburbs of 1950s Philadelphia to the high-society of 1980s New York. Robert Vishniak grows up in a working-class Jewish neighborhood, often at odds with his frugal, distant mother. Moving forward in time, Pomerantz chronicles Robert's varied adventures as he copes with the panoramic complexities and rewards of rebellion, self-renewal, and heartache. Over the course of four decades, Robert becomes entrenched in the upper echelon of Manhattan's elite, ultimately succeeding as a real-estate lawyer and marrying into a family of old money. Pomerantz's sweeping tale captures the intimate truths and hypocrisies of class, identity, and one man's quintessential American experience.

Sharon Pomerantz’s short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including the Missouri Review and Ploughshares, and her story Ghost Knife was included in The Best American Short Stories 2001.  As a non-fiction writer, Sharon contributes regularly to Hadassah Magazine, and has written for the Jewish Week, the Forward and Inside, the magazine of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.  She currently teaches writing at the University of Michigan.  This is her first novel.

Jessica Jiji- Sweet Dates of Basra
Inspired by the author’s family’s experiences, Sweet Dates of Basra pays tribute to Jewish culture that thrived in Babylon while presaging its inevitable demise.  When two Iraqi families –one Jewish and one Muslim-break through a wall in their adjoining courtyard, Shafiq and Omar begin passing notes through the hold, connecting one another as best friends.  As they grow up under the shadow of WWII and try to find their way, they begin to feel the effects of the shifting sands around them and the unrest that thrums beneath the surface.  This redemptive story of an unlikely friendship and a star-crossed love amidst two converging worlds serves as a powerful reminder that no walls can confine the human spirit. 

Jessica Jiji currently works as a speechwriter for the United Nations.  Jessica Jiji’s first novel, Diamonds Take Forever, won acclaim for its positive portrayal of Arabic-Jewish culture.  She also coauthored, with Paul Grossman, three feature-length screenplays. She is a passionate advocate of greater understanding on this important chapter in Jewish history

Katherine Rosman- If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Reporter’s Notebook
Katherine Rosman’s sixty-year-old mother Suzy died of lung cancer and Katherine and her sister Lizzie struggled to balance the agony of losing their mother and the relief that their mother was no longer suffering.  Driven by grief and haunted by the idea that she would only remember her mother as a cancer victim, Rosman began digging into Suzy’s past, using her professional acumen to research an extremely personal subject:  Who was Suzy apart from her roles as wife and mother?  And while it explores the universal realities of care-giving for a terminally ill patient and coping with the death of a loved one, what emerges in the resulting memoir is a very funny and heart-rending celebration of a strong, vibrant, vital woman.

Katherine Rosman is a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal who writes about popular culture.  Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and Elle.  A native of Michigan and a graduate of the University of Michigan, she lives in New York with her husband and two young children.

Wednesday, November 10 – 7:30 p.m.
Ari Weinzweig – Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business

The new series, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, aims to define a new kind of workplace in the 21st century.  Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business, reveals some the 'secrets' and early history of Zingerman’s success.  The book outlines 18 important ideas including: the power of a well-written and communicated organizational vision, the real purpose of a mission statement, and the benefits reaped from developing a culture of positive appreciation.  This book explains why treating individuals with respect and helping them to pursue their dreams and passions actively engages a successful team and shows how a business with the words “love” and “care” in the mission statement can achieve both profitability and community engagement while striving “to enrich as many lives as we possibly can.”

Ari Weinzweig moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan.  Along with his partner Paul Saginaw, Ari started Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982 with a $20,000 bank loan, a staff of two, a small selection of great-tasting specialty foods and a relatively short sandwich menu.  The Zingerman’s Community of Businesses currently includes seven businesses   Ari was instrumental in the founding of Food Gatherers, a perishable food rescue program.  In 1995, Ari and Paul received the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor’s first Humanitarian Award for their community contributions.  Ari is the writer of the Zingerman’s Newsletter and he is the author of several books, including his latest, Zingerman’s Better Guide to Bacon.

Thursday, November 11 – Noon
Jonathan Schneer – The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Issued in London in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was one of the key documents of the twentieth century. It committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of “a National Home for the Jewish people,” and its reverberations continue to be felt to this day. Now the entire fascinating story of the document is revealed in this impressive work of modern history.  With new material retrieved from historical archives, scholar Jonathan Schneer recounts the public and private battles in the early 1900s for a small strip of land in the Middle East, battles that started when the governing Ottoman Empire took Germany’s side in World War I. The Balfour Declaration is a rich and remarkable achievement, a riveting volume about the ancient faiths and timeless treacheries that continue to drive global events.

Jonathan Schneer, a specialist in modern British history, is a professor at Georgia Tech's School of History, Technology, and Society. He is the author of five additional books, as well as numerous articles and reviews. He was a founding editor of Radical History Review and is a member of the editorial board of 20th Century British History and the London Journal.

When four women who'd gone to college together run into each other at an alumni mixer, an instant bond is formed as Charlie convinces Bess, Naomi, and Sabine to join a beginner yoga class for just the four of them at her Brooklyn yoga studio. During the six weeks of class, the foursome proves to be easy to relate to as each discovers the strength to overcome some obstacle in their life.

Zoe grew up in Mobile, Alabama and later attended Boston University.  After college, she arrived in New York and took a job in book publishing.  Today, Zoe is the Foreign Rights Director and an agent for The Nancy Yost Literary Agency. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, whom she met on the subway after four plus years of trying to get up the nerve to say hello to him. Balancing Acts is her first novel.

Sunday, November 14 – 10:00 a.m.
Ethan Zohn – Soccer World: South Africa – Explore the World Through Soccer

Demonstrating how the world’s most popular sport also serves as a common language across all cultures, communities, and ages, this unique handbook explores the diverse country of South Africa through the game of soccer. Documenting the experiences of real-life professional player Ethan Zohn, this guide follows Ethan and his soccer-playing friend Tawela through the home of the 2010 World Cup, as they study ancient cave art and wildlife preserves, observe the migration of whales, and view a professional soccer game at one of the biggest stadiums in the world.

Ethan Zohn, a JCC Maccabi Games Alumni, is an American reality television series contestant who won $1,000,000 on Survivor: Africa, the third season of the reality TV series Survivor. After winning Survivor he co-founded Grassroot Soccer which leverages soccer in order to raise money and awareness to fight HIV/AIDS. Shortly after winning Survivor Africa, Ethan was hired by ESPN to serve as a sideline reporter for the US National Team's matches in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Sunday, November 14 – 12:30 p.m.
Local Authors Luncheon
Sponsored by: The Frankel Center of Judaic Studies

Sunday, November 14 – 7:30 p.m.
Rebecca Goldstein – 36 Arguments for the Existence of God – A Work of Fiction
Sponsored by: Mae and Leonard Sander

Cass Seltzer is a psychology professor whose writings about atheism make him a literary celebrity and bring him to state and rebut 36 arguments for and against the existence of God in an historic debate with a conservative economist.  On the way to the debate, Seltzer interacts with members of a Hasidic sect, including his own brother, current and former girlfriends and professors/mentors.  36 arguments for the existence of God is indeed a work of fiction, but it is informed by the background of its philosopher/novelist author.  Goldstein combines her modern Orthodox upbringing with her twin professions of professor of philosophy (Harvard University) and novelist to inhabit her fictional characters. 

The author of several novels, including The Mind-Body Problem and Mazel, Goldstein has also written highly-accessible nonfiction books about Kurt Godel and Baruch Spinoza. 

For more information about the festival, sponsorship opportunities, or a festival calendar, please contact Mimi Weisberg at the Jewish Community Center at 734-971-0990 or mimiweisberg@jccfed.org.

Pictures from the 2009 Jewish Book Festival