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Jewish Authors & Judaic Topics
Miami Book Fair has honored the important presence and rich cultural legacy of the global Jewish community since our inception, a reflection of our commitment to welcome and support marginalized voices.
This year’s Jewish Authors & Judaic Topics program is generously presented by
Past Events
November 2024
IN THE HOLOCAUST’S SHADOW, IS THERE STILL LIGHT? – FICTION & NONFICTION
KEREN BLANKFELD’s Lovers in Auschwitz: A True Story is a remarkable saga about Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia, who fell in love in Auschwitz, were separated upon liberation, led extraordinary lives apart following the war, and then found each other more than 70 years later. Inspired by historical events, LAUREN GRODSTEIN’s We Must Not Think of Ourselves: A Novel is the story of an underground group of archivists who fought to preserve humanity inside the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.…
HARD-WON HOLINESS: A READING & CONVERSATION WITH JESSICA JACOBS & AVA NATHANIEL WINTER
Join us for a discussion on the tender and difficult poetry found between religious traditions, queer desire, Jewish transfemininity, cultural histories, and the ethical knots of sacred texts. Structured around the 12 parshiyot (portions) of Genesis, JESSICA JACOBS’ unalone parallels immersion in Jewish teachings with the contemporary world and the author’s experiences growing up queer, embracing one’s sexuality, reversing roles as the adult child of aging parents, and other imposed roles of womanhood. In Transgenesis, AVA NATHANIEL WINTER challenges concepts of the beautiful and the sacred,…
GOOD HUMOR: THREE LIVES – NONFICTION
SHALOM AUSLANDER was raised in a dysfunctional family in the Orthodox Jewish community of Monsey, New York: the son of an alcoholic father, guilt-wielding mother, and a violent, overbearing God. But he began to suspect that what plagued him was something worse: a story called “Feh.” Feh: A Memoir is his midlife journey to rewrite that tale. In And Then? And Then? What Else?, DANIEL HANDLER recounts his journey to becoming one of the most successful writers of the 21st century.…
MIAMI HISTORIES & EVERYDAY HEROES – NONFICTION
CESAR BECERRA’s The Kaimiloa Project is the story of Medford “Med” Ross Kellum, who in 1924 was already an old man by the standards of the day. But ever since he first stood on the Key West piers as a child, he’d dreamed of following the great schooners to see unknown islands and cross vast seas. And he set off to do just that. Jewish Miami Beach, written by PAUL S. GEORGE, PH.D., and HENRY GREEN,…
THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS CELEBRATES 90 YEARS OF POETRY
Join the Academy of American Poets for a 90th anniversary reading and conversation featuring JOY CASTRO and CARLIE HOFFMAN, highlighting questions of national identity, migration, displacement, and belonging. Castro offers readers an intimate glimpse into the history of early 20th-century Cuban émigré society in Key West through Tears and Flowers: A Poet of Migration in Old Key West, a bilingual edition of Feliciano Castro’s poetry. Hoffman’s When There Was Light maps out a topography across Eastern Europe and America where global movements of diaspora and war live alongside personal reckonings,…
ON BEING JEWISH NOW – PANEL
On October 7, 2023, Jews in Israel were attacked in the largest pogrom since the Holocaust. On Being Jewish Now: Reflections from Authors and Advocates – an intimate collection of smart, meaningful, funny, emotional, and inspiring essays, edited by ZIBBY OWENS – gives voice to 75 contributors who shared their thoughts on what it means to be Jewish today in the wake of that violence. Speaking are contributors KEREN BLANKFELD, DARA LEVAN, and ROCHELLE B.…
“STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF ANCESTORS: MIDDLE GRADE ADVENTURES” – FICTION
Some say our paths are laid out by fate, but three young adventurers rise to the challenge to chart their own course. In RUTH BEHAR’s Across So Many Seas, while on a family vacation to Spain, Paloma retraces four generations of Jewish women as they travel across Europe, Cuba, and Miami to flee persecution and find opportunity. In Not Nothing by GAYLE FORMAN, 12-year-old Alex is stuck volunteering at a retirement home over the summer,…
November 2023
HISTORICAL FICTION: WOMEN’S STORIES
In Unearthed: A Lost Actress, a Forbidden Book, and a Search for Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust, MERYL FRANK explores the life and tragic end of her cousin Franya Winter, the leading light of Vilna’s Yiddish theater. In KERRI MAHER’s All You Have to Do Is Call: A Novel, the true story of the underground women’s health organization Jane Collective and its brave volunteers unfold. And in A Right Worthy Woman: A Novel, RUTH P.…
HISTORIA, FAMILIAS Y LEGADOS JUDÍOS
JEANNETTE GRUNHAUS DE GELMAN cuenta el recorrido de sus padres durante el Holocausto, y lleva al laector desde los oscuros años de la Europa en guerra hasta la salvación y la nueva vida en Venezuela. ARIANA NEUMANN reconstruye su historia familiar, tomando como punto de partida la documentación legada por su padre y los recuerdos de los meses que pasó en Berlín bajo una falsa identidad. SAÚL SOSNOWSKI narra las experiencias de personajes con vidas que discurren entre partidas,…
DYNASTIC INFLUENCES
JOSEPH SASSOON’s The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire is a saga of the making – and undoing – of a family dynasty. In The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America, DANIEL SCHULMAN shares the story of the German-Jewish immigrants who influenced what would become some of the largest investment banks in the world. Buy The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire.…
MITCH ALBOM ON THE LITTLE LIAR
Eleven-year-old Nico Crispi never told a lie. But after the Nazis invade his home in Greece, he’s lied about convincing his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading toward “the East” to safety. After learning he has helped send family and neighbors to their deaths, Nico never tells the truth again. MITCH ALBOM‘s The Little Liar: A Novel is a moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge, and devotion. Buy The Little Liar: A Novel. – Albom Sponsored by…