LA JOLLA, California (Press Release)——Interrelated programming themes at the 15th annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair focus on Religion, Spirituality, Ethics and Personal Development.  Author Lecturers on this topic include Rabbi Harold Kushner, Rabbi Hillel Silverman, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Bruce Feiler, Ellen Frankel, Noah Alper, Ernest Adams, Jeffrey Zaslow, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Charles London, Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry, Abigail Pogrebin, Gayle Slate, Daniel Asa Rose and Scott Silverman.

Rabbi Harold Kushner—The Book Fair kicks off the entire series in its brand new North County location, Temple Solel in Cardiff-by-the-Sea on Mon., Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m.  Rabbi Harold Kushner is one of today’s most revered spiritual leaders. His insights on handling difficult issues have inspired people of all faiths and backgrounds. Rabbi Harold Kushner is a captivating speaker with uplifting messages about life and work that inspire us to get more involved in the world and in our own lives. Sympathetic, anecdotal and commonsensical, Rabbi Kushner’s work rejuvenates the human spirit, comforts the soul and guides us towards lives and choices that mean something. In his talks and through his writings, Rabbi Kushner discusses loss, grief, crises of faith—the moral and spiritual complications of ordinary life—with the incomparable warmth and wisdom that has turned his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (!981) into an international bestseller. The book has been translated into fourteen languages and was selected as one of the ten most influential books by members of the Book of the Month Club.

Kushner’s latest book Conquering Fear – Living Your Life to the Fullest is an illuminating book about fear—and what we can do to overcome it. An inescapable component of our lives, fear comes in many guises: fear of unemployment; fear of aging, illness, losing beauty; fear of a terrorist attack or natural disaster. In uncertain times, coping with these fears can be especially challenging, but in this indispensable, hopeful book, Harold S. Kushner teaches us to confront, master, and even embrace fear for a more fulfilling life.

Drawing on the teachings of religious and secular literature and on the true stories of people who have faced their fears, Kushner helps us to see that fear can present us with extraordinary opportunities—to connect with our emotions, rethink our values, and change our lives, and the world, for the better. For those who fear helplessness, he suggests empowerment: through prayer, service, and education. For those who fear for mankind’s future, he insists on hope and pragmatic measures, such as working to protect the environment. For those who fear death, he proposes life—lived boldly and purposefully.

Rabbi Kushner’s warmth, wisdom and healing voice guide us in connecting with our emotions and in rethinking our values.  He is delighted to return to the San Diego Jewish Book and to make his “debut” in North County.

Harold Kushner is Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in the Boston suburb of Natick, Massachusetts. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Columbia University. He has six honorary doctorates, has studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and has taught at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Kushner was the editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism for four years. In 1995, he was honored by The Christophers, a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading messages of hope and understanding, as one of the 50 people who have made the world a better place in the last 50 years. In 1999, the national organization Religion in American Life paid tribute to him as their clergyman of the year.

Having spent thirty years as a rabbi serving a congregation, Harold Kushner knows how to bring the Scriptures alive in many fresh ways. His books offer rousing interpretations of Genesis, Ecclesiastes and the Psalms. His emphasis on God's forgiveness leads to another emphasis on the acceptance of our own and others' flaws. Kushner also demonstrates a knack for guiding us through suffering and loss with advice that is both wise and re reassuring. Readers and audiences can rely on Kushner for:

• Wide-ranging meditations filled with stories about what it means to be human and to make the world holy;
• Wise counsel on handling suffering, tragedies, and injustice;
• Encouraging discussions on the importance of forgiveness and personal acceptance; and
• Fresh insights into the Bible as our "family album" and source of meaning.

His presentation will undoubtedly inspire the beginning of two weeks of learning through great contemporary writings.

Ellen Frankel – Guiding Children to a Moral Life Through the Lessons from Biblical Stories. Spirituality through the study of Biblical stories will be the topic at the “Mini” Family Day at Temple Solel in Cardiff on Sun., Nov., 1, 2009.  Ellen Frankel, renowned author of Jewish literature for children and families, will be speaking twice to students. Between the two presentations, she will speak with parents. From 9 –9:45 a.m. and from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., she will have a discussion session with children in grades 4-6 about How the World Began and Other Hard Questions in the Bible. She will encourage the children to ask the hardest questions they can think of – questions about origins, Divine justice, moral justice, the fate of the Jewish people, and the role of Israel among the nations.  Then she will share Biblical stories that address those questions and discuss possible answers with the students.

From 9:50 –10:45 a.m., Frankel will meet with parents to discuss Why Jewish Kids Should Know Their Bible. The Jewish Publication Society has recently released Ellen Frankel’s new JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible, so she is well-qualified to answer such questions as: What is a children’s Bible? Why does one need a children’s Bible? Is the Bible good for Jewish children? How can parents who don’t regard the Bible as divine or even “true” share these stories with their children? Frankel will discuss challenges in creating a Bible expressly for children, and will engage parents in discussing the role that the Bible should play in their children’s moral and educational development.

Rabbi Hillel Silverman—The Story of a Life as a Spiritual Leader. The topic of Jewish spirituality will resume as a focus on Sun., Nov. 8, at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center. Rabbi Hillel E. Silverman will present his recent publication (his 12th book) – The Time of My Life: Sixty Fulfilling Years as a Congregational Rabbi – at the 9:30 a.m. Breakfast presentation. 

“I loved the calling of a Rabbi,” says Silverman. “It was the time of my life.” He enjoyed a lifetime of unique transcendental events as well as the normal – 5700 sermons, 3150 lifecycle celebrations, 9000 teaching hours... and “perhaps a half-year on the telephone.” During breakfast, Rabbi Silverman will share some of his most unforgettable rabbinic moments– from serving as a Haganah machine-gunner in 1948 to his involvement with Jack Ruby, the assassin of JFK’s assassin. 

Rabbi Hillel E. Silverman, Rabbi Emeritus, was born in Hartford, CT. He is the son of the late Rabbi and Mrs. Morris Silverman. Rabbi Silverman graduated from Yale University. He was ordained a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1949, and in 1952 achieved a Doctorate in Bible Studies. In 1974, he received an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from the University of Judaism. He was a member of the Faculty of the Academy of Jewish Religion and taught Bible and Homiletics.

Rabbi Silverman served three major congregations in the last 60 years: Shearith Israel in Salas, Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and Temple Sholom in Greenwich, Connecticut.  He doubled the membership and spearheaded the construction of new synagogues in all three congregations.  Upon his retirement in 2001, he served as Distinguished Visiting Rabbi at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla.

In addition to his pulpit duties, Rabbi Silverman is a recognized author and lecturer. During his tenure in Greenwich, he served on the Board of Directors of the Greenwich UJA/Federation, Jewish Family Services, Greenwich Emergency Medical Service, and other local civic agencies. He has also served as president of the Greenwich Fellowship of Clergy. He has served as Rabbi of the Mediterranean Sixth Fleet and as National Chairman of the Rabbinic Cabinet of the United Jewish Appeal.

Dr. Silverman has traveled extensively – including 31 trips to Israel, where he received from Menachim Begin the Prime Minister Medal at and Israel Dinner of State.  He and his wife Roberta are blessed with six children and eleven grandchildren. His son Jonathan Silverman is a well-known actor.

Noah Alper—How to Uphold Religious Values In Successful Entrepreneurship. On Sun., Nov. 8, at 2 p.m., the Author Lecturer will be Noah Alper, speaking on his book Business Mensch: Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Entrepreneur. Anyone who’s eaten a Noah’s Bagel knows the secret to Noah Alper’s business success. Noah Alper is the founder of Noah’s Bagels, a large West Coast bakery/restaurant chain, which grew in 6 ½ years from a one-store location in Berkeley California in 1989, to a publicly traded business he sold for $100 million.

Alper opened his own business consulting practice in early 2005, to provide strategic management, executive coaching and business planning consulting. Besides his bagel empire, Alper has founded five other businesses, including the Northeast’s largest natural food chain Bread and Circus (now part of Whole Food Market.)  He brings a wealth of start-up and small business expertise to the marketplace. His experience includes concept creation, marketing, retailing, food service, and sales management.

”I enjoy sharing my experiences of successful business start-ups, how I did it, and what I learned along the way,” says Alper. As a speaker and consultant, I have seen how people are motivated and intrigued to hear the do’s and don’ts of my exciting and rewarding business case studies.”

Alper is an accomplished motivational speaker, with over 35 years of business and non-profit management experience. He has lectured at Haas School of Business at The University of California, Berkeley, The Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin School of Business, and the School of Business at Golden Gate University. He is a student advisor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

Clearly, Alper is a successful businessman who serves as a mentor to other entrepreneurs. However, Alper is not just about the pocketbook – he also cares about the soul.  Business Mensch is based not only on business principles, but also on Jewish values and Alper’s personal growth as a Jew as well as a businessman.  Whereas Alper once believed that work and religion belonged in separate realms, he now realizes that Noah’s Bagels fulfilled his entrepreneurial dream, and employees were committed to Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world.  His path as a businessman ran parallel to an inner quest that led him to discover depth and meaning from the Jewish tradition.  Business Mensch is both a practical and a spiritual guide to achieving financial success while remaining loyal to timeless values.

Ernest H. Adams —The Spiritual Journey of an African American Jew. At 3:30 p.m. on Sun., Nov. 8, African American Ernest H. Adams will share his unique spiritual journey as recounted in his memoir From Ghetto to Ghetto: An African American Journey to Judaism.  Adams was raised during the Jim Crow Era in a basement apartment in Harlem – and he came of age during the growth of the Black Power movement that enabled him to attend college under the Affirmative Action program.  He did civil rights work in Alabama and is proudly the nephew of J.A. Delaine, who received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor on the 50th anniversary of his involvement with Brown v. Board of Education.

Meyer Goldstein befriended Adams in Law School and introduced him to his father Rabbi Baruch Goldstein, and they “adopted” Adams as their brother and son. This was his first step in a lifelong path toward reconciling his love of the Jewish community and his growth as a strong African American. When Ernest Adams celebrated his Bar Mitzvah January 15, 2000, he read about Hebrew slaves in Egypt, gave a speech on the Biblical case for affirmative action, and celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Although Adams converted to Judaism in the Conservative Movement, today he is an Orthodox Jew.  Once he had “the desire to convert,” says Adams, “what made it easy was the way the community supported me during the process.  I feel I have been greatly enriched by the Jewish tradition, especially in creating Dvar Torahs. [At the same time] Jews and Judaism have been enriched by my maintaining the integrity of my personhood as developed in Harlem.”

Today, with a Ph.D. in psychology form Columbia and a law degree from NYU, Adams works as an executive coach, diversity consultant and psychologist for clients ranging from Fortune 500 executives to Hollywood celebrities to the NYPD.  These experiences have widened his understanding of the American psyche.

Asked about the rift between the Jewish and African-American communities, Adams remarked, “Now may be a good time to begin the healing process.  With Obama in the White House and 78% of Jews voting for him, and with the first female African-American Rabbi, there’s a real chance for people to begin to have a serious dialogue about where we are now and what happened in the past.  There can be an honest shaking out of all of that…I hope white readers see me as representative of black folks…[and] I hope black readers will see and accept that Judaism and Jews are open to them…”

Jeffrey Zaslow—How Friendship Can Shape Our Lives For the Better. On Sun., Nov. 8, at 5:00 p.m., at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla, the Book Fair presents Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, who co-authored the #1 New York Times bestseller The Last Lecture with the late Randy Pausch. Zaslow attended the Carnegie Mellon professor’s famous lecture and wrote the story that sparked worldwide interest in it.  Zaslow will share with us a moving story about the importance of friendship – The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship.

Many people have maintained ties with a friend or two from school days – but hardly with a group of ten friends and for four decades. Zaslow inspires readers with this story of eleven women from Ames, Iowa; the enduring friendship that carried them through college, career, marriage, motherhood, divorce, a child’s illness, and the mysterious death of one member. As Zaslow himself says, this testament to the bonds of female friendship shows that “Men can come and go, but girlfriends are forever!”

The Ames Girls allowed Zaslow to enter their personal lives, to observe their interactions with their friends and other important people in their lives. Zaslow observed that while recent friendships are built on commonalities in the present, long term bond go beyond the here and now and are strengthened by a lifetime of shared memories.

Zaslow noted that men’s relationships take different forms than those of women.  “Men’s friendships tend to be based more on activities. Women talk.  Men do things together.  Women’s friendships are face to face, while men’s friendships are side by side.”

However, lest one think this lecture is for women only, Zaslow points out that men have much to learn from the value and process of women’s friendships. He observes that, “The way to keep friendships alive [is] to listen and talk, in that order.” This wise guideline, and other examples set by the Ames Girls (now in their mid-40’s,) are invaluable lessons to be applied to all human relationships – whether with men or women, children or adults, same sex or opposite sex, same generation or cross-generation. 

Zaslow’s testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life’s joys and challenges reveals the power of friendship to triumph over tragedy and heartbreak.  And it proves the maxim, “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver but the other gold.”

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin—What it means to Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. On Sun., Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the LFJCC in La Jolla, beloved and entertaining Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will speak about his latest release - A Code of Jewish Ethics: Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. .  As inspiring a speaker as he is an author, Telushkin once again delivers a book to live by – for people of all faiths.

One of the most popular speakers at book fairs across the United States, Rabbi Telushkin, scholar, screenwriter and author of fifteen books, has completed the second of his three volume series distilling the ethical content of Jewish tradition and encouraging discussion on how to apply long-held teachings to daily life. Telushkin regards the creation of this three-volume code of Jewish ethics as his life work.  He hopes to help Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all people “become more honest, decent and just people.”

Book 1: You Shall Be Holy focuses on personal character development and integrity.  Book 2: Love your Neighbor As Yourself  provides a much-needed guide for interpersonal relationships in these strife-torn times.  While many people know the title of this volume as a most-important Biblical commandment, many are puzzled about how to apply these words in daily life.  This is truly a book to live by, but Telushkin presents his code of law as a series of stories, anecdotes, historical events and fables that are enjoyable to read.  Drawing from thousands of years of Jewish teachings, this code is rich with ideas to contemplate and discuss – which Telushkin will undoubtedly do when he visits the San Diego Jewish Book Fair as one of the week’s most mesmerizing inspirational speakers.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has been named by Talk Magazine as one of the 50 best speakers in the United States. He is the author of 15 books, though he is probably best known for Jewish Literacy:  The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History.  The most widely selling book on Judaism of the past two decades, Jewish Literacy has been hailed by leading figures in all the major movements of Judaism, and has just been published in a third edition.

Telushkin’s 1997 book, Biblical Literacy:  The Most Important People, Events and Ideas of the Hebrew Bible, was chosen as a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.  The Book of Jewish Values: A Day by Day Guide to Ethical Living was the subject of a PBS special entitled Moral Imagination that aired throughout the United States in 2000.  His book, The Golden Land, a museum--in-a-book, tells the story of the Jewish migrations to the United States. In 2003, he published The Ten Commandments of Character:  Essential Advice for Living an Honorable, Ethical, Honest Life.

Rabbi Telushkin’s earlier book, Words that Hurt, Words that Heal became the motivating force behind Senators Joseph Lieberman and Connie Mack’s 1996 Senate Resolution # 151 to establish a “National Speak No Evil Day” throughout the United States. Rabbi Telushkin is also known for the two books he co-authored with radio host Dennis Prager. In 2003 Simon and Schuster reissued a revised and expanded version of their Why the Jews:  The Reason for Antisemitism.  The duo also co-authored one of the most influential Jewish books published in the last thirty-five years, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, hailed by Herman Wouk as “the intelligent skeptic’s guide to Judaism.” 

Although Telushkin is best known for his works of spirituality and values for people of all faiths, he is also an accomplished mystery novelist and TV screenwriter. In 2004, Toby Press published his novel, Heaven’s Witness, co-written with Allen Estrin, a murder mystery that deals with the themes of reincarnation and life after death. In 1997, his novel, An Eye for an Eye, became the basis for four episodes of David Kelley’s Emmy Award-winning ABC TV series, The Practice, and he has

co-written three additional episodes of the program.  He also co-wrote an episode of the TV series, Touched By An Angel, for Kirk Douglas, in which Mr. Douglas stars as a man who, after a lifetime of struggle with his faith, returns to God and Judaism.

Rabbi Telushkin was ordained at Yeshiva University in New York, and pursued graduate studies in Jewish history at Columbia University.  He resides in New York City with his wife, Dvorah Menashe Telushkin, and their four children. He lectures throughout the United States, serves as a Senior Associate of CLAL, on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Book Council, and as spiritual leader of the Synagogue for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

Said Sayrafiezadeh—Creating Humor and Joy from True Suffering. On Mon., Nov. 9, , at 2 p.m., Said Sayrafiezadeh will share his memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood at the LFJCC. Born to an Iranian father and a Jewish American mother, Sayafiezadeh grew up as the perfect “little revolutionary” for his socialist parents while living in an alterative universe of active poverty and fantastical thinking. 

When he was nine months old, his Iranian-born father took his siblings home and ran for president in an Iran about to fall under the ayatollahs’ take-over. Sayrafiezadeh remained in Pittsburgh with his mother who had fled her middle class Jewish roots for a hardscrabble life.  Enlisted as his mother’s accomplice, Sayrafiezadeh was forced to live in her self-enforced poverty while hawking subscriptions to The Militant on street corners, falling asleep at party meetings and waiting for the revolution that never came. Privately, he guiltily longed for American luxuries - including the neon-colored skateboards the revolution promised to the masses.

When asked how he feels about people ranting about capitalism’s dying days, Sayrafiezadeh responded, “People have been saying that my whole life.  I like my life, and I don’t really want to change.  I don’t need society to be dismantled. I don’t want to feel guilty about the things I have.  I have a 32-inch high-def flat-screen TV. I love that thing, man.”

Sayrafiezadeh continues, “It is very difficult for me to look at politics with clear eyes…The first thing that pops into my head is,  ‘What would my dad say about that?’ [All my life] I just needed my dad to tell me how to behave.  That’s what I missed as a child.  That’s why you need parents. That’s why I needed a father.  [But today] I try to break out of that and I think, ‘What would Said say about that?’

Struggling to break free from the mythologies of his upbringing, Sayrafiezadeh created a life, and a voice, of his own. His remarkable memoir portrays how an optimistic young boy created humor and joy from true suffering- and inspires other to find joy in their own lives.

Charles London—The Survival of Faith in an Isolated Community—At 3:30 p.m., on Mon., Nov. 9, Charles London will present Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Community at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla.  Charles London is best known for his examination of the effect of war upon children - One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War. While working for Refugees International, he interviewed child soldiers and other young people affected by ethnic conflict in Africa, Burma and the Balkans, and compiled their stories in a volume which he hoped would bring their plight to the American public.

In his latest publication Far From Zion, London explores the survival of faith and Jewish identity in the Diaspora. Over the 60+ years of the Jewish nation, Israel has carried out vast rescue operations to bring members of isolated Jewish communities, especially those in peril, home to Zion.  However, there have always been some left behind, by their own choice or for other reasons.

In this spiritual ethnography, London reports on his yearlong journey to countries where Jewish people are thriving under challenging circumstances.  According to London, their decision to stay put offers hope that peace might live in the promise of a global community of neighbors.

At the same time, their struggles with multiple identities and cultural histories – and their ability to create meaningful Jewish lives – inspired his personal spiritual development. Growing up as a Reform Jew and often pretending not to be Jewish, London grapples with his heritage and must come to his own terms with Zion.  London’s work may inspire others to look at their traditions and develop their own relationship with their national homeland.

Charles London grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, attended The Gilman School, and studied Philosophy at Columbia University. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, TheNation.com, The Baltimore Times, The Blue & White, The Columbia Review, and the Baltimore City Paper. In 1999, he won the Rolling Stone College Journalism Award. He is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science at Pratt Institute, and has been a Young Adult Librarian for the New York Public Library, a research associate for Refugees International, an assistant at a talent agency, and an after-school program coordinator. His first book, One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War, is published in the U.S. by HarperPerennial. He is the program director for War Kids Relief, and organization that works on building bridges between American and Iraqi youth. He lives in Brooklyn New York.

Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry—What Really Matters in Life is Family. On Tue., Nov. 10, at 5:00 p.m., actress Jill Eikenberry and her husband-actor-author Michael Tucker will engage in a conversation about Tucker’s new book, Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent. Tucker and Eikenberry, former co-stars of NBC-TV’s LA Law, have been together in real life for 35 years.

Tucker grew up in a large, closely connected Jewish family – his Dad was one of 15 children, his mother one of seven.  During his childhood, a bevy of relatives – cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents – were a constant presence in a daily life focused on the extended family.

 Tucker and Eikenberry opted for a more modern model of family, each family member pursuing his or her own career – wherever it might take them.  When they could, they carved out time together.  Tucker and Eikenberry even left their adult children behind in the United States when they opted for retirement to their dream home – a 350-year old farmhouse in the Italian province of Umbria.

However, their easy-going early retirement came to a halt when Jill’s mother Lora become widowed and sank into dementia.  Tucker found himself hearkening back to his growing-up years in a huge extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins.  Lora and her caregivers moved into an apartment across the hall from Jill and Michael’s New York flat – and their children moved nearby so that daughter Alison could be her grandmother’s personal chef.

In this heartwarming memoir, the family’s loose network of individual strands transforms into a lovingly cohesive family – so Italian, so Jewish!  Their family faces the issue of aging with charm, sympathy and warmth and their story demonstrates how those we love are our greatest asset in times of sorrow and in times of joy.  In the end, Tucker and Eikenberry conclude, the direction our life takes matters little; what really matters is that the family moves in that direction together.

America’s Prophet is a timely but provocative examination of the reenactment of the Biblical Exodus story and its hero Moses in our own U.S. history.  Feiler explores the integral role of Moses in such seminal touchstones of our past as Plymouth Rock, the Underground Railroad, the Gettysburg address and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech. Feiler proposes that Moses, embraced by all political parties and every generation, offers America a path to reclaiming its unifying vision as a beacon of freedom and as the new Promised Land.

Feiler is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books, including Walking the Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born, an award-winning journalist, and the writer-presenter of the PBS miniseries Walking the Bible. He has traveled to over sixty countries, on five continents, immersing himself in different cultures. The result is numerous acclaimed books that take readers along on his fascinating adventures and bring other worlds vividly to life.

Feiler, who grew up Jewish in Savannah, Georgia, says that an early encounter with the legend of Abraham was part of a watershed moment for him. The Torah passage he read for his Bar Mitzvah was Lekh Lekha, the story of Abraham going forth from his father's house. He told BeliefNet, "The defining moment of my life was the night of my Bar Mitzvah, when my father pulled me aside at this family gathering, poured me a drink, and said, 'Son, you're a man now, you're responsible for your own actions.'"

Today, Feiler lives in New York with wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their twin daughters. He recommends that the best books to read are the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Koran. “Everything doesn't come from Shakespeare, it comes from these [great books,] so why not focus on the greatest stories.”

Pogrebin has many roles – writer, mother, TV producer, wife, and New Yorker, to name a few.  However, the one role one that has defined her most profoundly is “identical twin.” Pogrebin's relationship with her sister, both as children, when they were inseparable, and today, when she longs for that uncomplicated intimacy, inspired her to examine the phenomenon of twinship—to learn how other identical pairs regard their doubleness and what experts are learning about how DNA impacts our sense of identity and shapes our lives.

In One and the Same, Pogrebin presents a tapestry of twinship, weaving science reporting and personal memoir with the revelatory stories of other twins, such as two sisters who stopped speaking for three years; football stars Tiki and Ronde Barber, who admit their twinship comes before their marriages; a pair of bawdy, self-proclaimed “twin ambassadors” who have created a media empire around their twinness; and brothers whose shared genetic anomaly wrought unspeakable tragedy. Pogrebin examines the struggle to balance intimacy and individuality while living with your mirror image.  Her stirring account will fascinate twins and those curious about twins, but she also serves as an inspiration to everyone who strives for a singularity that defines individual identity

Abigail Pogrebin has been a producer for Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers, and 60 Minutes—for Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley. She was a senior correspondent for Brill’s Content, a contributing writer for Talk magazine, and is now a free-lance journalist whose work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

Gayle Slate —Overcoming the Heartbreak of Tragedy. On Wed., Nov. 11, at 2 p.m., local Del Mar resident Gayle Slate will share her personal memoir Dana’s Legacy: From Heartbreak to Healing at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla.  Slate traces her journey from a joyous expectant mom, through the devastation of learning of her daughter’s disability, to a new life as a community leader advocating for the rights of families dealing with disability.

Says Slate: “Being told I’d given birth to a daughter with cerebral palsy was the worst moment of my life – but also the moment my real life’s work began.” San Diegan Gayle Slate faced head-on the challenge of her first child Dana – who had cerebral palsy and died at age 14 ½. After Dana’s death, Slate became a family therapist and the founder of Kids Included Together (KIT), and the first group of its kind in the U.S. KIT provides incentive funding, training, and technical support to organizations that include children with disabilities in their programming.

Besides relating her personal experiences, Slate provides practical lessons to parents coping with a disabled child.  She believes that disability brings opportunity as well as tragedy, and says, “Although your dreams for your child may seem shattered, new ones can be created.” She reminds her readers that they are never alone, but that they must listen to their own inner voices.  “Real control,” she says, “comes when the family faces its feelings honestly,” but she also cautions that “a child’s progress can’t be isolated from the family’s well-being.”

Slate’s inspirational story provides hope to families in pain and provides practical advice on transforming tragedy into opportunity and triumph. Slate is well known in the San Diego community, but few understand her intimately personal relationship to the cause with which she is so involved. It is impossible not to be spiritually uplifted by this woman who faced hardship with courage and creativity.

Daniel Asa Rose —Dealing with Serious Illness--with Humor.  On Wed., Nov. 11, , at 3:30 p.m. the 15th Annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair presents Daniel Asa Rose presents his light hearted account of Larry’s Kidney:  Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant – and Save His Life.

This latest nonfiction book by this author of Hiding Places is funny, heartwarming and outrageous.  The comic romp features estranged cousins on a Quixotic misadventure in a land neither knows. From the opening moment when Rose receives the desperate call for help from his cousin Larry Feldman, with whom he hasn’t spoken in 15 years, to the closing moments of their bizarre journey, Rose holds his readers both spellbound with curiosity and bent over with laughter. 

When Feldman learns that he is behind 74,000 other Americans on a list for the kidney transplant he needs to live, he suspects that he can find at least one kidney in the land of 1.3 billion people, even though Chinese law forbids transplants to Westerners.  Besides, penny-pinching Feldman concludes, he can make the trip a ”two-fer” by collecting the mail-order bride he’s found through an internet search - if only his estranged cousin will make the trip with him!

Feldman uses his $250,000 disability settlement from an icicle falling on his head and a forged letter of recommendation from a nun, and takes off to fulfill both of his objectives – while also working to restore East-West relations. Despite his misgivings about medical tourism, Rose joins his cousin and invests two months of his life in the effort to save his cousin’s failing body and romantic heart. With no contacts to work with, the cousins throw themselves on the mercy of a Western synagogue in Beijing, and their efforts to stay out of Chinese prison involve ex-Red Guards who waltz at midnight, the world’s worst taxi-drivers, and enemies who turn out to be closer than family.

Part travelogue, part family narrative, part unrelenting humor, this stranger-than-fiction memoir examines the plight of American patients hoping to live long enough to receive the organ transplants they await for years.  Although Rose is clearly part comedian, he’s also a man with a mission, a man who inspires his audiences to persevere in pursuing their own individual passions, goals and causes.

Rose, an NEA Literary Fellow for 2006, was born in New York City and graduated from Brown University, where he directed the alternative theater troupe and was awarded an honorary Phi Beta Kappa. Fleeing the stage after winning the Best Actor Award at the Abbey Theater in Dublin, he placed his first short story in The New Yorker when he was 27 and won an O’Henry Prize and two Pen Fiction Awards for the other stories in his first collection Small Family with Rooster. His first novel, Flipping for It, a black comedy about divorce from the man’s point of view, was a New York Times New and Noteworthy Paperback

In 2002, after siring four boys, he published Hiding Places: A Father and his Sons Retrace Their Family’s Escape from the Holocaust, a saga that intermingles a taut current-day search for the hiding places that saved his family in World War II with memories of the author’s own hiding places growing up in WASP 1950’s Connecticut.

Currently editor of the international literary magazine the Reading Room, Rose has served as book reviewer for The New York Observer and New York Magazine, arts and culture editor of the Forward, travel columnist for Esquire, humor writer for G.Q., essayist for The New York Times Magazine, and “food critic for the past 20 pounds.”

Scott Silverman—Overcoming Obstacles when People Say No! On Thurs., Nov. 12, at 5:00 p.m., the inspirational lecturer will be local hero Scott Silverman, the author of Tell Me No. I Dare You!  Well-respected San Diegan – and a dynamic speaker - Scott Silverman turned his destructive younger life of addiction, dare devil risks and attempted suicide into a mature life of creation and contribution.  After repairing his own life using his self-discovered Keys of Success, Silverman became a leader in the field of workforce development.

Today, he serves as Executive Director and Founder of the highly successful, multi-million dollar non-profit Second Chance, an agency devoted to breaking the cycle of unemployment, poverty, homelessness and recidivism by offering job readiness training, employment placement assistance, mental health counseling, case management and affordable housing referrals to people who desire to change their lives. Silverman has assisted more than 24,000 disadvantaged and homeless persons in San Diego leave poverty, gang affiliation and crime to become gainfully employed.

In 2008, he was named a CNN Hero of the Week, and the City of San Diego named February 19 as Scott Silverman Day. Now one of the foremost experts on prisoner release and recidivism in the United States, he considers Tell Me No. I Dare You! to be a guide for all people looking to find their YES.

15th ANNUAL SAN DIEGO JEWISH BOOK FAIR— The 15th Annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair will run from Oct. 19, through Nov. 13, with North County events on Oct. 19-20, and Nov. 1-4 and Family Day on Sun., Nov. 8.  North County events, sponsored by the Leichtag Family Foundation, will be held at Temple Solel in Cardiff; all other events, including the free-of-charge Family Day Book-a-Palooza will be held at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla. The Book Fair is presented with continuing support from the Viterbi Family Foundation, and the U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management. Family Day is supported by Target and the U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management, and underwritten by Dr. Andrew and Erna Viterbi, Sempra Energy and the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs Youth Endowment Fund. Tickets and more information are available online at www.lfjcc.org/sdjbf or by calling the LFJCC Box Office at 858-362-1348.