Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday October 31, 2003

Book fest highlights authors in Bay Area’s backyard

by alexandra j. wall
staff writer

Local authors are the emphasis at this year’s Contra Costa Jewish Book Festival, now in its 15th year.

“There is still as much energy and community participation as ever, despite our being in middle of our teen years,” said Riva Gambert, the coordinator of the festival, which is sponsored by the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center, and the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay.

Several thousand people are expected to come hear authors discuss their work, though the numbers could be higher this year.

“Local authors have friends and relatives who can come hear them and participate in the programs,” said Gambert, adding, “We are fortunate to find some wonderful authors right in our own literary backyard. We’re celebrating good writing and making new friends of the literary kind.”

Chair of this year’s book festival Hilary Friedman added, “Sometimes the best treasures are hidden right under your nose.”

Local authors include Donna Rosenthal, whose newly published “The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land” has been very well-received (see j. Oct. 17), as well as Ayelet Waldman, Gerald Nachman, Gloria Marchick, Theodore Roszak, Lin Weber, David Biale and Sue Fishkoff. Local children’s authors include Deborah Lee Rose, Tama Goodman and Matt Biers-Ariel.

Carolyn Starman Hessel, director of the New York-based Jewish Book Council, said several Jewish authors have been extremely popular on the Jewish book circuit this year.

The Jewish Book Council sponsors the Jewish Book Network, which promotes several Jewish authors a year.

Fishkoff has proven to be the most popular Jewish author this year, according to Hessel. Author of “The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch,” she is traveling to some 30 different cities to discuss the book, said Hessel.

“People are interested in learning about the Chabad movement, what makes it work,” said Hessel. “It’s a wonderfully successful group, why?”

Another very popular author for the past two years, though not local, is Stephen Fried, author of “The New Rabbi: A Congregation Searches for its Leader.” The paperback edition came out this year, with a new afterward.

“I think any congregation that’s going through a change of CEO is interested in what [Fried] had to write,” said Hessel.

Hessel also had glowing things to say about Daniel Levitas, author of “The Terrorist Next Door.”

“He’s a powerful speaker, and it’s a powerful topic,” said Hessel.

“This topic speaks to everyone,” she said. “Terrorists are not only in Israel anymore. They’re within our borders. [Levitas] has a wonderful way of speaking about it; you walk out of his program, and you’ve learned something.”

As director of the Jewish Book Council, Hessel works with book fair coordinators to find authors who are well suited to their particular communities.

Hessel noted that Biale, who remains a popular speaker in the East Bay, won a National Jewish Book Award for his “Cultures of the Jews: A New History.”

Local authors Weber, Marchick, Nachman and Roszak have all been written about in this publication since their works have come out.

Deborah Lee Rose of Walnut Creek is one of the local authors appearing at the children’s program. Her latest, “The Twelve Days of Kindergarten,” is a take-off on the traditional Christmas carol, with no holiday references involved.

“My son was going through kindergarten at the time and kept talking about what the teacher gave him on the first day,” said Rose. So it popped into my head that this phrase, ‘On the first day of kindergarten, my teacher gave to me,’ was an incredible opportunity to take a well-known rhyme that is linked to a holiday that not the whole world celebrates, and make it much more universal.”

Rose complimented the illustrator, Carey Armstrong-Ellis, for her “wacky” pictures, making it a “very funny book.”

Rose, who has written several children’s books, noted that “a lot of ideas came from the experience my kids had at the JCC. Good things come from having your kids in the Jewish community.”

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.