Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival returns with aim to educate and entertain
During these 'polarizing times,' it’s important to hear from people who can promote thoughtful public conversation
The Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival is returning to Congregation Beth Shalom Oct. 18-25, bringing authors and readers together for its third year with a focus on books, conversation and civil discourse.
Festival director and Congregation Beth Shalom Derekh Program Coordinator Shari Woldenberg touted this year’s program, crediting both the authors and co-sponsors with delivering much needed opportunities for learning.
During these “polarizing times,” it’s important to hear from people who can promote thoughtful public conversation, she said. “This is something that we’re passionate about.”
The festival begins Oct. 18 at 11 a.m. with a book sale, hosted by Amazing Books and Records in the Palkovitz Library at Beth Shalom, and local author talks by Hazzan Barbara Barnett and Dr. Jonathan Weinkle. Hours later, at 7:45 p.m., festivalgoers can relish an address from celebrated writer Joan Nathan.
Author of “My Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories: A Cookbook,” Nathan is a “matriarch of Jewish cooking,” and will appeal to multiple attendees, Woldenberg said. Nathan’s address is co-sponsored by the Heinz History Center’s Rauh Jewish Archives and Beth Shalom Sisterhood.
The following evening, Anita Wyzanski Robboy, author of “A Force for Good,” will discuss how in the face of Holocaust horrors Robboy’s mother, Gisela Warburg Wyzanski, partnered with Henrietta Szold and Chaim Weizmann to rescue thousands of Jewish children. The Oct. 19 program is co-sponsored by Hadassah and the Jewish Book Council.
On Oct. 20, thanks to co-sponsors Classrooms Without Borders and the Jewish Book Council, attendees can hear from James Loeffler. Author of “Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America,” Loeffler is the Felix Posen professor at Johns Hopkins University and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and former co-editor of AJS Review. His research concerns antisemitism, human rights, international law and genocide.
On Oct. 21, the Yiddish Book Center, Community Day School and the Pitt Jewish Studies Program are co-sponsoring a talk from Miriam Udel. Professor of Yiddish Literature and Culture at Emory University, Udel is author of “Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children’s Literature” and winner of the National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity.
Udel, who received ordination from Yeshivat Maharat, is also winner of a National Jewish Book Award for “The Modern Jewish Picaresque.”
On Oct. 25, Nicholas Lemann, an American writer, journalist and academic, who serves as the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore professor of journalism and dean emeritus at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, will speak about “Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries.” Lemann’s talk is co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. Days later, Lemann will join the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle Book Club for its Nov. 1 online discussion of his book.
The festival’s strength, which also includes an Oct. 18 program presenting Joan Nathan and local author and academic Barbara Burstin with Lifetime Achievement Awards, Woldenberg said, rests as much on the authors as it does on local partners. Included among the list of co-sponsors are Carolyn Slayton and Seth Glick, the Jewish Book Council, the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.
A grant from the Arthur J. Betty F. Diskin Cultural Endowment Fund also is supporting the festival.
Numerous groups and individuals have enabled the festival to continue growing, and although there are multiple opportunities to celebrate Jewish culture through cooking and music, the festival’s aim is to “get into some more difficult topics,” Woldenberg said. Polarizing issues, which include “anti-Zionism or antisemitism,” will be discussed by authors and moderators, with the hope that “the audience will ask questions and will learn from them.”
Glick, an organizer and lead sponsor of the festival, said the program offers ample learning opportunities.
“Every event has an author signing at the end, so you actually get to meet the people, and if you’re lucky, maybe even have a quick minute to ask them a question,” he said. “So many times we read books and we love the words, but we never really get to meet the person behind them.”
Whether the interaction results in a handshake or a book dedication for a friend, the program creates new connections, he continued. Participating in this festival is a way to “support Jewish authors, and to support an ecosystem of writers and readers and bookstores.” PJC
Ticket prices for single headliner events begin at $18. Registration and a schedule of events is available at bethshalompgh.org.
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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