And to think it all began with a Boston librarian named Fanny Goldstein. In 1925, Ms. Goldstein set up a modest Judaica exhibit in her West End branch and called it Jewish Book Week. The idea caught on across the country and by 1943 it had expanded to Jewish Book Month.
In November we celebrate Jewish Book Month, as we do every year. Our cover story this week offers highlights of the Bay Area’s three major Jewish book festivals, all of which take place in the weeks ahead.
Those festivals would be the Contra Costa Jewish Book & Arts Festival, which runs from Tuesday, Oct. 30 to Nov. 15, BookFest at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Nov. 4, and the Celebration of Jewish Authors at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center on Nov. 11.
We urge one and all to attend these events.
As our story notes, the festivals draw some big names from throughout the world of Jewish literature. It isn’t often that readers have a chance to meet so many important writers in a single setting. Each festival offers a golden opportunity to explore superb new Jewish-themed books and mix with fellow Jewish bibliophiles.
These days, the Jewish Book Council is the umbrella organization overseeing Jewish Book Month events around the country. But year-round, the council does so much more, sponsoring the National Jewish Book Awards, the prestigious Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Jewish Book Exhibitors Association.
We owe the council a debt of gratitude for pressing the unwavering importance of books to the Jewish community.
Jewish Book Month isn’t mentioned in the Torah, but it might as well be. As we are instructed in Deuteronomy, “You shall teach them to your children.” There is no better way to do that than with Jewish books.
But we have our work cut out for us.
According to “Reading at Risk,” a report from the National Endowment for the Arts, recent years have seen steep declines in reading rates, especially among young people. The period of study in that report suggested a loss of some 20 million potential readers.
The community must do everything possible to keep from contributing to that worrisom statistic. With local organizations like the Bureau of Jewish Education and the Jewish Coalition for Literacy, as well as events like the annual book festivals, we can safely say Bay Area Jews are doing their part.
So make your way to the book fairs. You’ll be glad you did, and somewhere out there Fanny Goldstein will be glad, too.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California