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October 28, 1994 - Image 10

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1994-10-28

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

OPEN BOOK page 1

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come part of the Clinton politi-
cal liturgy.
Ms. Lewis also has managed
to secure some leading Jewish
thinkers, like Rabbi Harold
Schulweis; a number of writers
with Detroit connections, like
Linda Breiner Milstein, Faye
Moskowitz and Alan Tigay; and
some screamingly good mystery
writers like Batya Gur and
Rochelle Majer Krich.
"I'm a risk taker," Ms. Lewis
says of the Book Fair schedule.
"If I know something is going to
be a little sensitive, I say, 'Let's
do it.'
"My mission is not to censor,
it's to see what's out there. My
role is to expose people to a vari-
ety of ideas. People grow the
most when they're a little un-
comfortable."
This is Ms. Lewis' first book
fair in Detroit, but hardly her
first book fair ever.
Before coming to Michigan,
Ms. Lewis served for eight years
as cultural arts director of the
Jewish Community Center of
Norfolk, Va. (She moved here
when her husband took a job
with the Wayne State University
medical school.)
In Norfolk, she decided early
on that predictable was not to
be the catchword of her book
fairs. She remembers when
black-Jewish author Julius
Lester came to speak. The sub-
ject was Jewish racism.
"Everybody in the audience
squirmed a little bit," she says.
"But they won't forget the pro-
gram."
Ms. Lewis begins planning the
book fairs with a lot of "tasting
and swallowing" of her own.
Months before the event, she
starts looking over Publisher's
Weekly, a trade journal that lists
new and upcoming books.
"I make a mental file early in
the year about books that would
be of Jewish interest," she ex-
plains.
Then in May she attends the
American Booksellers
Convention, "with 35,000 of my
closest friends." She meets with
publishers and learns which au-
thors likely will be on tour. That
helps narrow the list.
The next step is securing a co-
sponsoring group, which helps
with airfare, hotel and publici-
ty for each author. Co-sponsors
this year range from the JCC
Women's Health Club (for au-
thor Alan Zweibel, who wrote a
biography of Detroiter Gilda
Radner, who died of cancer) to
the Ecumenical Institute for
Jewish-Christian Studies (which
is co-sponsoring Lawrence
Schiffrnan, author of Reclaiming
the Dead Sea Scrolls).
Her chief criterion in selecting
authors is the content of the
book: "It must speak to the com-
munity and the people," she says.
That's why Ms. Lewis' list can
include someone like Irish-

Catholic sportswriter Dan
Shaughnessy, author of Seeing
Red: The Red Auerbach Story,
but has no big-name Hollywood
celebrities who, by luck of the
draw, are born Jewish, but
whose books don't even make
mention of their religion.
That the focus is on the book's
content is one distinctive feature
about Detroit (most book fairs re-
quire only that the author is
Jewish). A second is that, unlike
the majority of other book fairs
nationwide, Detroit does not pay
its guests to speak.
The 43rd annual Jewish Book
Fair opens 8 p.m. Nov. 5 at the
Center. The first guest is
Rodger Kamenetz , author of
The Jew in the Lotus, the story
of the author's journey from
Tibetan Buddhism (and yes, he
meets Richard Gere along the
way) to his own Jewish roots.
Mr. Kamenetz, who lives in
Baton Rouge, La., is professor
of English at Louisiana State
University.
Reservations are required for
some events, so call the JCC,
661-1000, first.
Other guests at the Book Fair
are:
NOV. 6
10 a.m. Linda Breiner
Milstein: Giving Comfort
11 a.m. Alan Tigay: The
Jewish Traveler
1 p.m. Samuel Bak: Samuel
Bak: A Retrospective
2 p.m. Jason Kingsley and
Mitchell Levitz: Count Us In:
Growing Up With Down
Syndrome
3 p.m. Dan Shaughnessy:
Seeing Red: The Red Auerbach
Story
4 p.m. Judith Katz: Running
Fiercely Toward A High Thin
Sound
8 p.m. William Kunstler: My
Life as a Radical Lawyer
NOV. 7
10 a.m. Judith Rossner:
Olivia: Or The Weight of the Past
1 p.m. Joan Nathan: Jewish
Cooking in America
8 p.m. Edward Serotta:
Survival In Sarajevo: How a
Post-Holocaust Jewish
Community Came to the Aid of
Its City
NOV. 8
10 a.m. Helen Epstein: Joe
Papp: An American Life
1 p.m. Yaron Svoray: In
Hitler's Shadow: An Israeli's
Amazing Journey Inside
Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement
7 p.m. Glenn Frankel:
Beyond the Promised Land: Jews
and Arabs on a Hard Road to a
New Israel
8 p.m. Rabbi Harold
Schulweis: For Those Who
Can't Believe

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