Jewish Authors & Judaic Topics

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,…

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.…

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,…

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 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.…