“Every year, we try to go a little beyond the year before” at Milwaukee’s Jewish Book and Culture Fair, said Dorene Paley, director of community services at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.
Paley, who staffs the project with Jewish arts and culture coordinator Cindy Benjamin, said in a telephone interview that new events this year will include one for teenage girls and a Chinese kosher lunch.
The fair also presents a wide range of Jewish authors and an equally wide range of books, some with Jewish content and some without, from children’s books to adult humor, memoir to biography.
Paley said she, Benjamin, and fair co-chairs Debra Katz and Sheila Smith all went to the Jewish Book Council’s conference in New York in June to hear and select from some 120 authors.
“We selected authors we felt were of interest to the community while at the same time providing a variety of speakers,” Paley said. “We’re very excited, we think we have a tremendous schedule.”
Moreover, with the Karl Campus under construction, the fair will be taking place at many different sites in the Jewish and general communities.
“This gave us the opportunity to venture out into the community,” said Paley. “A new look is never a bad thing. We will have it with the JCC, now we’re having it with the book fair.”
The full schedule is as follows:
• Daniel Libeskind is not only the internationally renowned architect who received the commission for the master plan for the World Trade Center site. He is also an accordion player; a child of Polish Jewish parents who survived Soviet camps; and author of the memoir, “Breaking Ground.” He will be the opener and headliner of the fair.
He will speak on Monday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m., at the Bradley Pavilion of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St. His appearance is co-sponsored by Kahler Slater Architects. Admission is $15 general, $8 for students.
• Milwaukee native David Deutsch and Joshua Neuman are editors of Heeb Magazine and co-authors of the satire, “The Big Book of Jewish Conspiracies.”
They will speak Tuesday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m., at the Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design, 208 N. Water St. Admission is $10 general, $5 for students.
This event is co-sponsored by Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Young Leadership Division, Young Jewish Adults of Milwaukee and B’nai B’rith Youth Organization.
• Rachel DeWoskin, author of “Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China,” will speak on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 11:30 a.m., at Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue.
A kosher Chinese lunch will be available. Admission is $20 with lunch, $10 without.
• Anne-Marie Asner, author of the children’s books “Shmutzy Girl” and “Noshy Boy,” will read them on Sunday, Nov. 13, 1 p.m., at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in Mequon, 10976 N. Port Washington Rd. Admission is free.
• Local orthopedist Gary Guten, M.D., author of “Injuries in Outdoor Recreation: Understanding, Prevention & Treatment,” will speak on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m., at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in Mequon. Admission is free.
• Sociologist Shulamit Reinharz, Ph.D., of Brandeis University will speak twice on Wednesday, Nov. 16; admission is free to both talks. She will discuss her book for Jewish teen girls, “The J Girl’s Guide,” at 4 p.m. at Congregation Beth Israel.
Then at 7 p.m., she will deliver the 2005 Faye Greenberg Sigman Woman of Valor Lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Golda Meir Library. Her topic will be “Golda’s ‘Sisters’: Six Zionist Women Leaders and the Difference They Made.”
This event is co-sponsored by the UWM Center for Jewish Studies, the UWM Faye Greenberg Sigman Lecture Series Fund, Hadassah-Milwaukee Chapter, and the Presidents’ Conference of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Women’s Division.
• Tom Reiss, author of the biography of Jewish author-traveler-eccentric Lev Nussimbaum titled “The Orientalist,” will speak on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 7 p.m., at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in Shorewood, 4093 N. Oakland Ave. Admission is free.
• Larry Jay Diamond of Stanford University, author of “Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq,” will speak on Monday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m., at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel, 8900 N. Kildeer Ct. Admission is $10 general, $5 for students. This event is co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations.
• Two authors of family memoirs will be featured on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m., at Congregation Beth Israel. Samuel G. Freedman (“Jew vs. Jew”) will discuss his new book “Who She Was: My Search for My Mother’s Life” and Steven V. Roberts will discuss his “My Fathers’ Houses.” Admission is $10 general, $5 for students.
• Family psychologist Dr. Brad Sachs, author of “The Good Enough Teen: Raising Adolescents with Love and Acceptance (Despite How Impossible They Can Be),” will speak on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 7 p.m., at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun.
Admission is $10 general, $7 for couples, $5 for students. This event is co-sponsored by the Harold & Terry Nash JCC Parenting and Family Center; and funded by the Dr. Herbert & Ruth Giller Endowment Fund of the JCC, and the Milwaukee Jewish Day School.
The fair is funded by the Alex & Ilsa Neurath Malkin Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation; and the author series is funded by the JCF’s Dr. Gary & Judy Guten Jewish Book Foundation.
For more information, call the JCC, 414-967-8227, or visit www.jccmilwaukee.org. MORE STORIES
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