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LA JOLLA, California (Press Release)--San Diego County's internationally recognized Jewish Book Fair celebrates its 15th year with special new programming and, for the first time, events in North County. Book Fair events 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-by-the-Sea; 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. Each author presentation is followed by a book signing.
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.
“Our San Diego Jewish Book Fair is recognized by the national Jewish Book Council as one of the best book fairs in the country,” said Co-Chair Gloria Stone of La Jolla. “Our reputation is excellent – for our Family Day, for the selection of books for sale and the number of books sold, for the vast array of author/speakers on a variety of topics, and for the interaction between attendees and speakers - as well as between attendees themselves.”
Co-Chair Linda Daniels of Del Mar added, “Everyone who comes to our book fair is thrilled they made the effort. Authors who attend have such a positive experience that they call us and ask if they can return when their next book is published! It is no surprise that our San Diego community is so welcoming and supportive nor that the word about our hospitality spreads among the writing and reading community.”
Headliner Larry King—Larry King, host of CNN's Larry King Live,the first worldwide phone-in TV talk show, will present his memoir, Larry King: My Remarkable Journey, at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair on Sun., Nov. 9 at noon. The Emmy Award-winning host of CNN’s highest-rated program, King has been dubbed "the most remarkable talk-show host on TV ever" by TV Guide and "master of the mike" by TIME magazine. King has done more than 40,000 interviews throughout his half century in broadcasting, including exclusive sit-downs with high-profile guests including Tony Blair, Marlon Brando, George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, Jimmy Carter and Roslyn Carter, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bette Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Gerald Ford and Betty Ford, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bobby Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Sir Paul McCartney, Richard Nixon and Pat Nixon, Al Pacino, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frank Sinatra, Margaret Thatcher, Oprah Winfrey and Malcolm X. Described as the "Muhammad Ali of the broadcast interview," King has been inducted into five of the nation's leading broadcasting halls of fame and is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his life’s work.
The 2009 San Diego Jewish Book Fair features three special areas of interest – the 80th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birthday, spiritual growth and development, and the hot topic of the Middle East.
80th ANNIVERSARY OF ANNE FRANK’S BIRTHDAY –EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
Highlighted authors of the Anne Frank observance include Francine Prose and Stephen Smith in an evening program honoring Anne Frank, on Wed., Nov. 11 at 7:30 p.m. Beloved novelist Francine Prose explores the literary nature of Anne’s diary in her latest book Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. Prose examines how Anne devoted the last days of her life to polishing a book that she hoped would have an impact on the world – and she obviously succeeded, as her home in Amsterdam is one of the most visited attractions in the nation, and her book has been translated into more than 50 languages and has sold more than 25 million copies. Stephen Smith is the recently appointed director of the USC Shoah Foundation, the organization Steven Spielberg created to record the stories of Holocaust survivors for future generations. Smith’s book Making Memory: Creating Britain’s First Holocaust Centre recounts his family’s personal story – their Christian pilgrimage to Israel including a trip to Yad Vashem, which inspired him to establish Beth Shalom (House of Peace), the first Holocaust center in the entire United Kingdom.
In addition, in honor of Anne Frank’s birthday, there will be three exhibits for Book Fair guests of all ages to explore. Inside Anne Frank’s House returns to the SDJBF after traveling all over the nation. This interactive exhibition gives visitors an opportunity to literally “live” in a model of the Frank hideaway. Those who have taken this tour have been deeply moved by the experience.
One young San Diegan, Zachary Kucinski, was so moved by his encounter with the Holocaust at the 2006 San Diego Jewish Book Fair that he has begun to fulfill his dream of opening a WWII/Holocaust Museum here in San Diego someday. “It is important to keep the lessons of the Holocaust alive,” said Kucinski. When Kucinski met Ela Weissberger, Holocaust survivor and author of The Girls of Room 28: Friendship Hope and Survival in Thereseienstadt, the yellow star in her pocket made him wonder where his own grandfather’s yellow star might be. His grandfather said he thought that his mother had burned his family’s stars when they went into hiding to escape the Nazis. But Kucinski wanted a yellow star of his own – and asked for it as a Bar Mitzvah gift. He located a “Jude” from a French Holocaust museum that was closing. When it arrived, he was deeply touched and decided to start a collection of Holocaust artifacts. The collection that will one day become his museum will be on display at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center during the run of the Book Fair. As Seen Through the Dream of a San Diego Teenager will undoubtedly inspire others to help Kucinski fulfill his dream. This exhibit will premiere at the 2009 San Diego Jewish Book Fair.
The third exhibition at the 2009 Book Fair will be The Family I Never Knew. This beautiful display of the art of Ardyn Halter addresses the Holocaust from the point of view of the second generation, as well as from the perspective of everyone born after the Holocaust. Halter’s paintings and illuminated Judaica have become collectors' items in Israel, Europe and North America, sought by both museums and private collectors. Halter is dedicated to the concept of continuity with Jewish tradition through the affirmation of Jewish ethics and values. His work draws on the rich fund of influences on Jewish art and life over the centuries but also looks ahead, fusing the strands of centuries of the Jewish past with new designs in the present, particularly with the combination of those influences and cultures in modern day Israel.
In North County, the program related to Anne Frank’s 80th birthday, will be speaker Bryan Mark Rigg on Tue., Nov. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Historical scholar, military officer, and admired professor, Rigg devoted years of research to uncovering the true history of the nearly 150,000 Wermacht soldiers of Jewish descent. Now, he returns to the Jewish Book Fair to share Lives of Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich, the personal stories of twenty-one of these men who fought for a country that stole their civil rights and exterminated their relatives. The constant tension in their lives and their crises of conscience in horrific times are shocking and disturbing, yet fascinating.
On Wed., Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m., Kati Marton speak in North County on the topic of the strength and survival of Judaism; her book is entitled Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America. A well-respected international investigative journalist, Marton wowed SDJBF audiences with the thrilling story of The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World. Now she shares her family’s gut-wrenching personal journey from Cold War Budapest, where they were Enemies of the People, to sanctuary in the U.S. The shocking details she uncovers – from her nanny who spied for the secret police, to her “friends” who informed on her family, to her parents’ brutal incarceration – are told with raw and genuine emotion.
HOT TOPIC – INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS –THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE 21ST CENTURY
A second theme of the 2009 Jewish Book Fair is the hot topic in international news – life on the ground and at the bargaining table – in the Middle East. Programming about the Middle East will focus on a range of issues and will feature speakers on both ends of the political spectrum in order to present a full and balanced view of this controversial and emotional topic.
The first author/speaker on this topic will be David Makovsky, fellow at the renowned Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Makovsky will be speaking at Temple Solel in Cardiff by the Sea on Tue., Oct. 20 at 7:30 p.m. about his new book (co-written with well-known Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross), Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East. Together, Makovsky and Ross address the question: Why has the U.S. consistently failed to achieve its goals in the Middle East? Their answer is that we have been working under false assumptions about the nature and motivation of Middle East leaders and their countries. The authors debunk numerous fallacies: that peace in Israel is the key to all the Middle East’s problems; that peace and democracy require regime change; and that Iran’s leadership is immune from diplomatic/economic pressure. This primer on what we should and should not do is a road map toward America’s regained respect in the world as well as long-term multi-pronged solutions to the region’s troubles.
San Diego Jewish Book Fair programming at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla begins on Thurs., Nov. 5, at 7:30 p.m. with the 6th Annual Murray Goodman Memorial Lecture. Clinton administration advisor and two-time U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk will discuss his book Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. This insightful history and poignant memoir takes us inside the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Arab palaces and Israeli offices, and demonstrates how Americans fail to grasp Middle Eastern leaders’ thought processes. Indyk attributes the failure of previous peace efforts to a combination of Palestinian dysfunction, violence and terror, Israeli politics, Arab resistance to change, and American naiveté and idealism.
On Sat., Nov. 7, the 7:30 p.m. program will feature Robert Spencer in conversation with Dennis Prager. Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of 8 books on Islam and Jihad, is a much sought-after speaker and expert on the topics he explores. Infidel’s Guide to the Koran is a factual but light-reading look at the Koran’s tenets, values and beliefs. Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs exposes the silently lethal movement to gradually Islamize America and to undermine our democratic values and civilization through litigation, political correctness and exploitation of the West’s crisis of confidence. Spencer will engage in what promises to be a most lively conversation with radio talk show host and syndicated columnist Dennis Prager. Tom Snyder calls Prager “one of American’s five best speakers” and the LA Times calls him a “gifted moralist whose mission…[is] to get people obsessed with right and wrong.” Neither Spencer nor Prager shies away from controversy, and their discussion will undoubtedly deal straightforwardly with difficult issues.
At 7:30 p.m. on Mon., Nov. 9, Rabbi Daniel Gordis will talk about his latest book Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End. Now Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, Gordis issues a call to arms for reinventing modern Zionism. He claims that the normalcy Israel seeks is neither possible nor desirable because the purpose of a Jewish state is to articulate Jewish values in daily and national life. Israel must embrace Jewish tradition’s understanding that military force is sometimes necessary, specifically when facing implacable enemies with designs on destroying both Israel and Judaism. Delighted to be causing controversy, Gordis encourages public debate about what a Jewish state should be – and why it matters.
The annual Yitzhak Rabin Commemoration at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair will be held on Wed., Nov. 11 at 5:00 p.m. The peaceful legacy of Israel’s beloved Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
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will be honored with an inspiring lecture by Dan Senor, Fox news correspondent and co-founder of The Foreign Policy Initiative, a think tank that considers “international economic engagement
as a key element of U.S. foreign policy in this time of great economic dislocation.” Senor will speak about his new work co-authored with Saul Singer, Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. Senor points out that Israel has a population of only 7.1 million people, a history of only 60 years, no natural resources, and a hostile environment in which its neighboring enemies have kept it in a constant state of war. So, Senor asks, how has Israel produced more start-up companies than Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada and the UK? A renowned Middle-East expert, Senor offers a fascinating look at Israel’s meteoric rise in the global economy.
SPIRITUAL GROWTH AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Many of the author lecturers address issues of personal development – from Jewish spirituality and ethics to friendship, community and business issues. Here are a few:
On Mon., Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Solel in Cardiff by the Sea, guest speaker Rabbi Harold Kushner, one of our times’ most revered spiritual leaders, offers insights on handling difficult issues. From his first best seller, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, to his most recent release, Conquering Fear – Living Your Life to the Fullest, Kushner has helped readers battle life’s difficult moments using true inner strength. In today’s troubling times, fear is unavoidable – fear of unemployment, aging, illness, terror, natural disaster, and more. Kushner draws on religious and secular teachings, as well as true stories of people facing their fears, to show us how we can improve ourselves, enhance our lives, and even better the world around us. Kushner’s warmth, wisdom and healing voice guide us in connecting with our emotions and in rethinking our values.
At 3:30 p.m. on Sun., Nov. 8, Ernest H. Adams recounts his memoir From Ghetto to Ghetto: An African American Journey to Judaism. When 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. This crucial lifecycle event – celebrating his conversion to Judaism while embracing his Black heritage – embodies Adams’s 62-year journey from a childhood of poverty in a Harlem basement during the Jim Crow Era to an adulthood of attempting to overcome racial fear and ultimately to becoming both a practicing Jew and a proud African American. Adams will share his dramatic changes and his belief that our new African-American president promises equally dramatic changes for America.
On Sun., Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m., scholar, screenwriter and author of fifteen books Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will speak about his latest release - A Code of Jewish Ethics: Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. One of the most popular speakers at book fairs in the U.S., Telushkin 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. Love your Neighbor As Yourself provides a much-needed guide for interpersonal relationships in these strife-torn times. As inspiring a speaker as he is an author, Telushkin truly delivers a book to live by – for people of all faiths.
On Mon., Nov. 9, Said Sayrafiezadeh will share his memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood at 2 p.m. Born to an Iranian father and a Jewish American mother, Sayafiezadeh grew up as the perfect “little revolutionary” for his socialist parents. When he was nine months old, his father took his siblings to Iran and ran for president right before the ayatollah’s take-over. Sayafiezadeh remained in Pittsburgh with his mother, living in self-enforced poverty but guiltily longing for American luxuries, including the neon-colored skateboards the revolution promised to the masses. This remarkable memoir portrays how an optimistic young boy created humor and joy from true suffering.
On Tue., Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m., Bruce Feiler, author of America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story, explores the integral role of Moses in such seminal touchstones 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, a respected journalist and author of the popular Walking the Bible, has gained an international reputation as a layman with great spiritual insight.
On Wed., Nov. 11 at 2 p.m., local Rancho Santa Fe resident Gayle Slate will share her personal memoir Dana’s Legacy: From Heartbreak to Healing. 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.” 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. Her inspirational story provides hope to families in pain and provides practical advice for transforming tragedy into opportunity and triumph.
At 3:30 p.m. on Wed., Nov. 11, 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. The latest book by the author of Hiding Places is his funniest, most heartwarming and most outrageous book yet. This comic romp features estranged cousins on a Quixotic misadventure in a land neither knows. Part travelogue, part family narrative, part unrelenting humor, this stranger-than-fiction memoir also examines the plight of American patients hoping to live long enough to receive the organ transplants they await for years.
On Thurs., Nov. 12, at noon, 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 - 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 (recently named CNN’s Hero of the Week,) became a leader in the field of workforce development. As director and founder of Second Chance, an agency devoted to breaking the cycle of unemployment, poverty and homelessness, he has assisted more than 24,000 disadvantaged and homeless persons in San Diego leave poverty, gang affiliation and crime to become gainfully employed.
NOTABLE FICTION
The first featured fiction author will be Robert K. Tanenbaum at Temple Solel in Cardiff by the Sea , on Mon., Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m. Tanenbaum is a nationally recognized attorney-at-law and legal expert who has never lost a felony case and has been involved in such high profile cases as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Hillside Strangler case, the Amy Grossberg baby death case and a major racial profiling case in CA. He is also the author of 23 books, two nonfiction and 21 fiction, including his most recent release Capture, which examines the nature and use of the “big Lie” and its corrupting influence on American society and the U.S. justice system. With over 23 million copies in print, Tanenbaum is a master of the legal thriller genre. In Book 21 of the NYC District Attorney Butch Karp and his crime-fighter wife Marlene Ciampi series, Tanenbaum again hooks us with straight-from-the-headlines adventures.
On Tue., Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. Anita Diamant returns to the San Diego Jewish Book Fair with her latest release, Day After Night: A Novel. Bestselling novelist and author of six guides to Jewish living, Diamant turns to Israel, the land of The Red Tent, to tell the story of four young Jewish women who survived the Holocaust and escaped to Palestine. They find friendship, love and salvation, courage and hope while waiting for their future to unfold in the barb-wired British internment camp at Atlit in the days before the founding of the state of Israel.
The 2009 San Diego Jewish Book Fair’s closing evening program on Thurs., Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. will feature Amos Oz in one last look at what makes Israel tick. Lifelong Zionist and world-renowned Israeli author Oz returns to San Diego with two new books. The Amos Oz Reader is a great introduction to his work – with excerpts from his novels and his nonfiction centering around four themes – kibbutz, Jerusalem, the “promised land,” and autobiography. His latest “novel” Rhyming Life & Death features a prominent Israeli writer, (The Author), mocking his own celebrity status and inventing hilariously erotic lives for the people around him. This deceptively mischievous adventure shares profound insights on literature and language, life and death.
SING-ALONG CONCERT WITH PETER YARROW
On Thurs., Nov. 12 at 5 p.m., Peter Yarrow will present a sing-along concert. Known for his songwriting, sound quality and commitment to excellence, Yarrow, along with Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers, made up the popular folk group Peter, Paul & Mary. The trio produced such standard '60s hits as "Blowin' in the Wind," "If I Had a Hammer" and "Puff the Magic Dragon"; much of their music centered around the social issues and concerns of the times. In an effort to combat school violence, Yarrow started Operation Respect. The project brings children a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each other's differences. In all, the program has been presented to many educational leaders and more than 10 million children. In some form, the project has reached nearly 1/3 of all elementary and middle schools in America, at least 20,000 schools in all. Yarrow advocates “…shifting the American educational paradigm to educating the whole child, not just in academics, but in character, heart, social-emotional development. As we Jews say, `let him be a mensch first; everything else will work out'.”
FAMILY DAY BOOK-A-PALOOZA
The 15th Annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair kicks off Family Day on Sun., from noon until 4 p.m. The afternoon will be full of a wide range of active fun programs for kids of all ages. This year’s Family Day promises to be bigger and better than ever. Some highlights of the day’s schedule include:
· Dramatic presentations by four famous authors, Rob Kurtz (Seamus McNamus: The Goat Who Would be King), David Sacks (Vigfus the Viking), and David Weiss, (Carl the Frog), and Dava Savel (The Town of Zack).
· Tea for Two – An American Girl Tea Party with the newest American Girl doll – 9-year-old Rebecca Rubin, a Jewish-American girl who lives with her family on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
· Ongoing Art Activities throughout the afternoon, including 1) Jewish Origami, 2) Making a paper hat; 3) Creating a bookmark, 4) making a cookie (to eat), and 5) Discovering the art of Roy Lichtenstein with author/artist Susan Goldman Rubin.
Two exciting exhibitions to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birth:
· Inside Anne’s House: An Interactive Exhibit , an opportunity to “walk through” Anne Frank’s House and discover on one’s own what it was like to live in the Secret Attic; and
· As Seen Through the Dream of a San Diego Teenager, Zachary Kucinski’s debut of artifacts to fulfill his dream of a World War II/Holocaust Museum in San Diego.
Other Author Presenters include:
· David Ginsburg – Menorah Under the Sea
· Susan Goldman Rubin - The Anne Frank Case: Simon Weisenthal Search for the Truth
· April Halprin Wayland - New Year at the Pier: A Rosh Hashanah Story
For more information, visit the website: http://sdcjc.lfjcc.org/sdjbf/2009/book-a-palooza.aspx
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