Jewish Museum Hosts Week-Long Celebration of the Written Word
Starting this Sunday, November 12, and continuing through the following weekend, the Museum of Jewish Heritage will host the second annual New York Jewish Book Festival. This year’s festival will feature events for adults, kids, and families, as well as programs connected to a new exhibition, “Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark.”
“This year the book festival spans two weekends with virtual events during the week in between,” says museum vice president Joshua Mack. “We are celebrating Jewish culture and history with a wonderful variety of Jewish voices and topics. The first weekend is for adults and the second weekend is for families and children of all ages.”
The adult programs slated for this Sunday run from 11am through 5pm with talks, panels, and author signings. At 11am, Leah Koenig, author of the new cookbook, “Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome’s Jewish Kitchen,” will talk about the people who are keeping Roman Jewish food alive today. At 11:30am, rabbi and scholar Shaul Magid will discuss his book “In The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance,” and reflect on how Jewish identity has been shaped by attempts to define terms such as “exile,” “diaspora,” and “Zionism.” At 1pm, photographer Marcia Bricker Halperin recalls the world of the legendary Dubrow’s Cafeteria, a restaurant-social club for a generation of New Yorkers in Brooklyn. Also at 1pm, editors and authors who collaborated on “The Routledge History of Antisemitism” will discuss newly resurgent bigotry against Jews. At 1:30pm, rabbis Joshua Stanton and Benjamin Spratt and Protestant minister Dr. Jacqui Lewis will grapple with questions such as whether religious organizations are in decline, what changes have caused many of them to lose touch with modern spiritual needs, and how they can remain relevant in today’s world. Finally, at 3pm, acclaimed author Mitch Albom (known for “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”) will talk about his new novel “The Little Liar.”
The Museum of Jewish Heritage is located at 36 Battery Place, near First Place. Admission to all New York Jewish Book Festival events is free, although advanced registration is required. Voluntary donations are suggested, and will be gratefully accepted. For a complete listing of all events during the coming week and the following Sunday (or to register), please click here.
“Our approach is to create an open tent,” observes Mr. Mack, “broad enough to include people who have very different perspectives on how to define Jewish literature or culture. We want to capture the full diversity of the Jewish world and its experience.”