United Jewish Federation of Tidewater & Simon Family JCC's Lee & Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival 2024

For over 40 years, this annual celebration of Jewish writers, books, and ideas has featured authors from various backgrounds who have written about diverse topics. Featured author events allow the community to engage with bestselling and up-and-coming writers.

Schedule of Events

October 28, 2024

7:30PM - 9:00PM: Rachel Beanland : Jewish Book Festival

FREE & Open to the Community

Based on the true story of Richmond’s 1811 theater fire, this story of four characters from drastically different backgrounds reveals how tragedy can offer rare chances for redemption.

It’s the height of the winter social season in Richmond, Virginia. On the night after Christmas in 1811, the city’s only theater is packed with more than six hundred revelers. In the third-floor boxes sits newly widowed Sally Henry Campbell, reliving the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson is grateful for a brief escape from her worsening life. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes for a permanent job with the company, while blacksmith Gilbert Hunt, across town, dreams of one day bringing his wife to the theater once he can buy her freedom.

When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will affect not only their own lives but those of countless others. In the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined. Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, "The House Is on Fire" proves that sometimes, amid great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.

Rachel Beanland is the author of the novel "Florence Adler Swims Forever." She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her husband and three children in Richmond, Virginia. She has taught creative writing at the College of William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University and served as the 2023–2024 Writer in Residence at the University of Richmond.

November 7, 2024

12:00PM - 2:00pm: White & Silva: Jewish Book Festival: $10 for JCC Members | $14 for Non-JCC Members

Discover the incredible true story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg, a Jewish woman who masqueraded as a Polish countess to save thousands during the Holocaust.

The Counterfeit Countess tells the true story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg—a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland by masquerading as a Polish aristocrat. Using the identity papers of Countess Janina Suchodolska to conceal her identity, Mehlberg rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by Poland's Nazi occupiers.

Mehlberg operated in Lublin, Poland, as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, the "Countess" persuaded S.S. officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp and won permission to deliver food and medicine for thousands more prisoners. At the same time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned in Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers and shooting pits. Incredibly, she eluded detection, ultimately surviving the war and emigrating to the U.S.

Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg's unpublished memoir supplemented with their own research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, professional historians and Holocaust experts, have uncovered the whole story of this remarkable woman. They interweave Mehlberg's sometimes harrowing personal testimony with a broader historical narrative, creating a riveting account of inspiring courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty.

Dr. Elizabeth "Barry" White recently retired from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where she served as historian and as Research Director for the USHMM's Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Before working for the USHMM, Barry spent a career at the U.S. Department of Justice working on investigations and prosecutions of Nazi criminals and other human rights violators. She served as deputy director and chief historian of the Office of Special Investigations and as deputy chief and chief historian of the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section. She lives in Falls Church, Virginia.

Dr. Joanna Sliwa is a historian at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) in New York, where she also administers academic programs. She previously worked at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. She has taught Holocaust and Jewish history at Kean University and Rutgers University. She has served as a historical consultant and researcher for the PBS film “In the Name of Their Mothers: The Story of Irena Sendler.” Her first book, “Jewish Childhood in Kraków: A Microhistory of the Holocaust,” won the 2020 Ernst Fraenkel Prize from the Wiener Holocaust Library. She lives in Linden, New Jersey.

November 14, 2024

12:00PM - 2:00pm: Claire Sufrin: Jewish Book Festival: Online

Sources is an award-winning print and digital journal published by the Shalom Hartman Institute that promotes informed conversations and thoughtful disagreement about the issues that matter most to the Jewish community.

Sources editor Claire Sufrin will join Hillel professionals from throughout Virginia to talk about the current climate on college campuses through a discussion of the summer 2024 issue of the journal, "Jewish on Campus."

November 18, 2024

7:30PM - 9:30pm: Stuart E. Eizenstat: Jewish Book Festival

Go inside the room of high-stakes global negotiations-from the Vietnam War to the Iranian Nuclear Accord—with lessons from top diplomats and world leaders, gripping firsthand accounts, and exclusive interviews.

In one readable volume, diplomat and negotiator Stuart E. Eizenstat covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord. Written from the perspective that only a participant in top-level negotiations can bring, Eizenstat recounts the events that led up to the negotiation and the drama that took place around the table and draws lessons from successful and unsuccessful strategies and tactics. Based on interviews with over 60 key figures in American diplomacy, including former presidents and secretaries of state and major political figures abroad, Eizenstat provides an intimate view of diplomacy as today’s history. The Art of Diplomacy provides invaluable insights into the art of negotiation.

Stuart E. Eizenstat has served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and Deputy Secretary of both Treasury and State. He is also the author of "President Carter: The White House Years" (2018), "The Future of the Jews: How Global Forces are Impacting the Jewish People, Israel, and Its Relationship with the United States" (2012), and "Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II" (2003). He is an international lawyer in Washington, DC.

November 20, 2024

12:00PM - 1:30pm: David & Susan Schwartz: Jewish Book Festival

Did you know that Costco sells more than half of the world's cashews? Or that they sell seven times more hotdogs than all Major League Baseball stadiums combined?

David & Susan Schwartz live in a tiny apartment in New York City – but that doesn’t stop them from being two of Costco's biggest fans. Since 2016, they have been to over 250 of Costco's 850+ warehouses, getting behind-the-scenes looks at depots, packaging facilities, vendors, meatpacking plants, and more. Traveling over 240,000 miles, they have visited at least one warehouse in 47 US states and 13 other countries.

The Joy of Costco covers a Costco-sized list of topics from A to Z, ranging from cashews and chicken to hot dogs and Hawaii. Whether you’re one of Costco’s 128 million members or just have a passion for fun facts, the Schwartzes will teach you something you didn’t know you wanted to know.

David Schwartz is the author of several books, most recently "The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age." David spent much of his youth in San Francisco, where his parents were early members of Price Club, Costco’s predecessor.

Susan Schwartz worked in marketing at Nabisco and General Foods in the 1980s when mass merchandising was still considered an “alternate channel” of distribution. She grew up in Philadelphia where she delighted in shopping at Costco with her parents.

November 21, 2024

6:30PM - 8:30pm: Lenore Skenazy: Jewish Book Festival

Learn to raise independent kids with the author who started a movement. Perfect for parents and guardians of children of all ages, Skenazy helps teach grown-ups to step back so kids can step up.

In the newly revised and expanded Second Edition of Free-Range Kids, New York columnist-turned-movement leader Lenore Skenazy delivers a compelling and entertaining look at how we got so worried about everything our kids do, see, eat, read, wear, watch, and lick -- and how to bid a whole lot of that anxiety goodbye.

Using research, humor, and feisty common sense, Skenazy demonstrates:

How parents can reject the media message, “Your child is in horrible danger!”
How schools can give students more independence, and what happens when they do. (Hint: Teachers love it.)
How everyone can relax and successfully navigate a judgey world filled with way too many warnings, scolds, and brand-new fears
With real-world examples, advice, and a clear-eyed look at how our culture forces fear down our throats, Skenazy describes how parents and educators can step back so kids can step up. Positive change is faster, easier, and a lot more fun than you’d believe. Skenazy has helped millions of American parents feel brave and optimistic again—and the same goes for their kids.

Ever since her column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” created a media firestorm, Lenore Skenazy has been declaring that our kids are safer and smarter than our culture gives them credit for. In response to the blowback, she started Free-Range Kids, the blog-turned-book-turned-movement that garnered her the nickname “America’s Worst Mom.” She has lectured everywhere, from Microsoft to DreamWorks to conferences and schools across the country and even at the Bulgarian Happiness Festival. You may have seen her on “The Today Show,” “The Daily Show,” “Dr. Phil,” or her own reality show, “World’s Worst Mom.”
Lenore is co-founder and president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence. Before all this, she was a reporter and columnist at “The New York Daily News” and “New York Sun.” Her other books include "The Dysfunctional Family Christmas Songbook" and "Has the World Gone Skenazy?"

December 4, 2024

7:30PM - 9:30pm: Eddie Shapiro: Jewish Book Festival

Join theater journalist Eddie Shapiro for a Cabaret-style evening of songs and stories celebrating the lives of some of the most remarkable women of Broadway and the songs they brought to life!

In Here's to the Ladies, the follow-up to his first book, Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater, theatre journalist Eddie Shapiro sits down for intimate, career-encompassing conversations with yet more of Broadway's most prolific and fascinating leading women.

Full of detailed stories and reflections, his conversations with luminaries such as Barbara Cook, Kelli O'Hara, Heather Headley, Faith Prince, Stephanie J. Block, Tonya Pinkins, and a host of others dig deep into each actor's career. Together, these chapters tell the story of what it means to be a leading lady on Broadway over the past fifty years.

Eddie Shapiro is the author of "Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater," "A Wonderful Guy: Conversations with the Great Men of Musical Theater," and hundreds of magazine articles with much shorter and more sensible titles than his books.

Date:
October 28 -  December 4, 2024

Location:
Simon Family Jewish Community Center,
5000 Corporate Woods Drive,
Virginia Beach, VA 23462.

Click here for More Information