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Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival

OUR COMMUNITY

M

ark your calendars for the 36th 
Annual Ann Arbor Jewish Book 
Festival. Join the Jewish Community 
Center of Greater Ann Arbor and its commu-
nity partners Nov. 5-19 for two weeks of in-per-
son, virtual and hybrid events featuring a diverse 
array of authors bringing new works of fiction, 
nonfiction and children’s literature to Washtenaw 
County.
This year’s program opens on Sunday, Nov. 
5, with a live, in-person conversation with 
Forward news director and My Jesus Year author 
Benyamin Cohen on his new book, The Einstein 
Effect: How the World’s Favorite Genius Got into 
Our Cars, Our Bathrooms and Our Minds. The 
following evening, Rabbi Diana Fersko delivers 
a virtual talk on her timely nonfiction debut, We 
Need to Talk About Antisemitism, co-presented 
by the JCC and Jewish Federation of Greater Ann 
Arbor.
The JCC is delighted to host a Lunch & Learn 
series throughout the festival. Renowned tele-
vision journalist and author Martin Fletcher 
will visit Ann Arbor for an in-person lunch 
with registered guests on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 
at noon to discuss his latest memoir, Teachers: 
The Ones I Can’t Forget. Efrat Lachter, inves-
tigative correspondent for Israel’s Channel 12 
News, will be joining in-person to moderate. 
Guests are welcome to a delicious, in-person 
lunch while Sylvie Bigar (Cassoulet Confessions: 
Food, France, Family and the Stew That Saved 
My Soul) and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian 
Debby Applegate (Madam: The Biography of 
Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age) join us virtually 
on Nov. 10 and Nov. 15, respectively. 
Virtual events to look forward to feature 
Jennifer Rosner (Once We Were Home: A Novel), 
Rebecca Claren (The Cost of Free Land: Jews, 
Lakota, and an American Inheritance) and Orwell 
Prize-winning columnist Jonathan Freedland 
(The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of 
Auschwitz to Warn the World).
Families with young children are invited to 
a hands-on composting workshop with Anita 
Pazner, author of The Topsy-Turvy Bus, on Sunday, 
Nov. 12, at noon and a live reading of The Museum 

of Lost Teeth by Elyssa Friedland the next morning. 
Both of these live children’s events are sponsored by 
the Ann Arbor JCC’s Early Childhood Center and 
Hebrew Day School of Ann Arbor. 
Jeff Bender (Apparel Has No Gender: 
Thoughtful Commentary from a Dad Raising a 
Transgender Child; Oh, I Just Didn’t Know: 11 
Thoughtful Conversations for Grandparents and 
Grandchildren) and middle-grade novelist A.J. 
Sass (Camp Quiltbag) will appear together on 
Tuesday, Nov. 7, for an online discussion on par-
enting and transgender inclusion in the Jewish 
community.
Additional highlights of this year’s program 
include Tablet editor-at-large and Unorthodox 
host Liel Leibovitz (How The Talmud Can 
Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice 
from a Very Old Book), second-generation 
Holocaust survivor Anna Salton Eisen (The 
23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir), journalist and 
author Andrew Lawler (Under Jerusalem: The 
Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City), 
fourth-generation retailer and debut novelist 
Martin Sneider (Shelf Life: A Novel), and Richard 
Hurowitz (In The Garden Of The Righteous: 
The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews 
During the Holocaust).
More details about this year’s scheduled events 
are available (and will continue to be updated) 
online at jccannarbor.org/book-festival. In addi-
tion to our organizational partners, committee 
members and volunteers, the Ann Arbor Jewish 
Book Festival relies on the generous support of 
individual community members and local families 
to bring substantive, engaging literary programs to 
Washtenaw County year after year. For informa-
tion on becoming a sponsor of the 36th Annual 
Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival, visit jccannar-
bor.org/book-festival or contact Ariella Monson 
at (734) 971-0990 or ariellamonson@jccannarbor.
org. With general questions about the festival, 
email bookfestival@jccannarbor.org. 

Nat Bension is interim book festival director at the Jewish 

Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor. This story was first 

published in the October 2023 Edition of the Washtenaw 

Jewish News.

Join the JCC of Greater Ann Arbor Nov. 5-19.

NAT BENSION SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS 

