Charlotte Jewish Book Festival 2023

Welcome to the 2nd annual Jewish Book Festival

Greetings, friends and book lovers!

The Center for Jewish Education (CJE) is excited to bring back its annual Jewish Book Festival for the second year! This year, we look forward to gathering in person for stimulating conversations with renowned Jewish authors.

Our 2023 lineup showcases seven bestselling authors sharing their stories. From Dara Horn’s thought-provoking book “People Love Dead Jews,” to the spy thriller “An Affair of Spies” by Ron Balson, to the fun and quirky children’s book “Meet the Matzah” by Alan Silberberg - there’s something for everyone at this year’s festival. You’ll find information on all of the authors and programs in this brochure, so we hope you’ll take a few minutes to sit back, relax, and plan how you want to participate in the Charlotte Jewish Book Festival!

Of course, none of this would be possible without the generosity of our sponsors. We are grateful for their continued support. We would especially like to thank Publix Charities for sponsoring the festival at the Publisher level, as well as Maid Brigade and the Levine JCC for their Page Turner sponsorships.

We hope to see you at the 2nd annual Jewish Book Festival. As always, it’s our goal to entertain, educate and inform. We promise this year’s festival will not disappoint!

Happy reading!

704-944-6763

Book Festival Package: $180

For those who want the complete Book Festival experience Includes:

• Ticket to all Book Festival events

• Signed copy of the books

• Private reception with Dara Horn on Opening Night

• Recognition as a Festival Patron

Get all the Books

Books available for purchase at the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library and at all events. Authors will be available for book signing at their event.

PUBLISHER SPONSOR

PAGE TURNER SPONSOR

KNOWLEDGE. INVESTING IN

We’re proud to support those who work toward a brighter tomorrow.

The Postmistress of Paris

MARCH 16 THURSDAY | 7 PM

Preview Event: Virtual

Free ticket with other event purchase

• International bestseller

• Good Morning America buzz pick

• New York Times book review editors’ choice

• People Magazine pick

• Indie next pick

• Amazon best of the month

• Publishers Weekly notable book for fall/winter

“Lyrical,thought-provokingprose…This sterlingportraitofacomplexwoman standsheadandshouldersabovemost contemporaryWWIIfiction.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Train to London revisits the dark early days of the German occupation in France in this haunting novel—a love story and a tale of high-stakes danger and incomparable courage—about a young American heiress who helps artists hunted by the Nazis escape from war-torn Europe. Wealthy, beautiful Naneé was born with a spirit of adventure. For her, learning to fly is freedom. When German tanks roll across the border and into Paris, this woman with an adorable dog and a generous heart joins the resistance. Known as the Postmistress because she delivers information to those in hiding, Naneé uses her charms and skill to house the hunted and deliver them to safety. Photographer Edouard Moss has escaped Germany with his young daughter only to be interned in a French labor camp. His life collides with Nanée’s in this sweeping tale of romance and danger set in a world aflame with personal and political passion. Inspired by the real life Chicago heiress Mary Jayne Gold, who worked with American journalist Varian Fry to smuggle artists and intellectuals out of France, The Postmistress of Paris is the haunting story of an indomitable woman whose strength, bravery, and love is a beacon of hope in a time of terror.

MEG WAITE CLAYTON

Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Postmistress of Paris (a Publisher’s Weekly notable book; HarperCollins, Nov. 30, 2021), the National Jewish Book Award finalist and international bestseller The LastTrain to London, the Langum Award honoree The Race for Paris, the Bellwether Prize finalist TheLanguageofLight, and The Wednesday Sisters, an Entertainment Weekly 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. Her novels have been published in 23 languages. She has also written more than 100 essays, opinions, and reviews for major newspapers, magazines, and public radio. She mentors in the OpEd Project, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the California bar.

People Love Dead Jews

MARCH 19 SUNDAY | 7 PM

Opening Night

• Tickets: $10

• Location: Sam Lerner Center for Cultural Arts

• Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice

• Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction

• New York Times Notable Book of the Year

• Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

“Thisisoneofthose unexpected,memorable books…riveting,gorgeously written.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the “righteous Gentile” Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present.

Part of the Federation’s Outshine Hate initiative

DARA HORN

Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books, including five novels and the collection of essays, PeopleLoveDeadJews. She was one of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists (2007) and has been the recipient of two National Jewish Book Awards, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Harold U. Ribalow Award, and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize. Her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s 25 Best Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and have been translated into eleven languages. Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.

An Affair of Spies

MARCH 21

TUESDAY | 7 PM

• Tickets: $10

• Location: Sam Lerner Center for Cultural Arts

• From the winner of the National Jewish Book Award—Ronald H. Balson’s AnAffairofSpies tells of a spy mission to rescue a defector from Germany and prevent the Nazis from creating an atomic bomb.

• AnAffairofSpies is an action-packed tale of heroism and love in the face of unspeakable evil. Author Ronald H. Balson has applied his unmatched talent for evocative and painstakingly authentic storytelling to the high-stakes world of espionage and created his most thrilling novel yet.

Nathan Silverman grew up in Berlin in the 1920s, the son of a homemaker and a theoretical physicist. His idyllic childhood was soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community. After his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival. While attending an evening course at Columbia in 1942, Nathan notices a recruitment poster on a university wall and decides to enlist in the military and help fight the Nazi regime. To his surprise, he is quickly selected for a special assignment; he is trained as a spy, and ordered to report to the Manhattan Project. There he learns that the Allies are racing to develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazis, and a German theoretical physicist is hoping to defect. The physicist was a friend of his father’s, and Nathan’s mission is to return to Berlin via France and smuggle him out of Europe. Nathan will be accompanied by Dr. Allison Fisher, a brilliant young scientist who can speak French; he travels to her lab at the University of Chicago for a crash course in nuclear physics, then they embark on their adventure. Nathan and Allison soon develop feelings for one another, but as their relationship deepens they move ever closer to their dangerous goal. Will they be able to escape Europe with the defector and start a new life together, or will they fail their mission and become two more casualties of war?

RON BALSON

Ronald H. Balson is an attorney, professor, and writer. His novel The Girl From Berlin won the National Jewish Book Award and was the Illinois Reading Council’s adult fiction selection for their Illinois Reads program. He is also the author of DefendingBrittaStein, Eli’sPromise,Karolina’sTwins,TheTrust,SavingSophie, and the international bestseller Once We Were Brothers. He has appeared on many television and radio programs and has lectured nationally and internationally on his writing. He lives in Chicago.

The Matchmaker’s Gift

MARCH 23

THURSDAY | 7 PM

• Tickets: $10

• Location: Sam Lerner Center for Cultural Arts

“Combiningauthentichistoricalfictionwithmysteryandatouch ofromance,Loigmanartfullyremindsusthatthepastisnever far,thepresentisagiftandthefutureisoursforthemaking.The Matchmaker’sGiftistimelyandtimeless,andreadersshould maketimeforthisoriginalandtouchingstoryaboutthethings thatmattermost.”

PAM JENOFF, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman With The Blue Star

Is finding true love a calling or a curse?

Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves. Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?

LYNDA COHEN LOIGMAN

Meet the Hamantaschen, Meet the Matzah

MARCH 25

SATURDAY | 4 PM

Free PJ Library family program

Registration required

Location: Sam Lerner Center for Cultural Arts

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Meet the Hamantaschen:

You’ve met the latkes, you’ve met the matzah…now it’s time to meet the hamantaschen in this zany Purim story! Somebody has stolen the Purim megillah and it’s up to three delicious detectives to figure it out! The Purim Party is in full swing, and the Purim play is ready to start – but without the megillah – there is no spiel.

Meet the Matzah:

From the creator of Meet the Latkes comes the zaniest retelling of the Passover story starring an earnest matzah and his bready friends! Alfie Koman likes to hide. He is all set to tell his class the Passover story when the big bully, Loaf takes over. In Loaf’s version, the tyrant enslaving the Hebrews is not the Pharoah… but the PHA-ROACH, a giant evil cockroach. As Loaf ’s story gets more and more wild, it’s up to Alfie to stop hiding and tell everyone the real Passover story

ALAN SILBERBERG

Alan Silberberg (www.silberbooks.com) is an award-winning author, cartoonist and children’s TV creator who has worked with Nickelodeon and Disney. He’s the author and illustrator of three previous middle grade novels including Milo:StickyNotes&BrainFreeze, which won the Sid Fleishman Humor Award and is currently in development to become an animated TV series. Meet the Latkes was Alan’s debut picture book, followed by Meet the Matzah and Meet the Hamantaschen.

“Afunandfoodie-friendlyparodythatilluminatesthe originofthePurimfestivalforyoungreaders.”

The Thread Collectors

MARCH 26 SUNDAY | 1 PM

• Tickets: $18

• Location: Sam Lerner Center for Cultural Arts

• Enjoy high tea with the authors.

PAM JENOFF, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman with the Blue Star

1863: In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, an ingenious young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Bound to a man who would kill her if he knew of her clandestine activities, Stella has to hide not only her efforts but her love for William, a Black soldier and a brilliant musician. Meanwhile, in New York City, a Jewish woman stitches a quilt for her husband, who is stationed in Louisiana with the Union Army. Between abolitionist meetings, Lily rolls bandages and crafts quilts with her sewing circle for other soldiers, too, hoping for their safe return home. But when months go by without word from her husband, Lily resolves to make the perilous journey South to search for him. As these two women risk everything for love and freedom during the brutal Civil War, their paths converge in New Orleans, where an unexpected encounter leads them to discover that even the most delicate threads have the capacity to save us. Loosely inspired by the authors’ family histories, this stunning novel will stay with readers for a long time.

SHAUNNA EDWARDS AND ALYSON RICHMAN

SHAUNNA J. EDWARDS has a BA in literature from Harvard College and a JD from NYU School of Law. A former corporate lawyer, she now works in diversity, equity and inclusion. She is a native Louisianian, raised in New Orleans, and currently lives in Harlem with her husband. The Thread Collectors is her first novel. Find her on Instagram, @shaunnajedwards.

ALYSON RICHMAN is the USA Today and #1 international bestselling author of several historical novels, including The Velvet Hours, The Garden of Letters, and The Lost Wife, which is currently in development for a major motion picture. Alyson graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in art history and Japanese studies. She is an accomplished painter and her novels combine her deep love of art, historical research, and travel. Alyson’s novels have been published in twenty-five languages and have reached bestseller lists both in the United States and abroad. She lives on Long Island with her husband and two children, where she is currently at work on her next novel. Find her on Instagram, @alysonrichman

“Anunforgettablestoryoffemalestrength,hopeandfriendship. Thiscollaborativeworkismagnificent—atruerevelation!”