The JBC: Author Series 2024/25
For the coming year, the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County has created exciting ways to connect, learn, or be entertained.
In partnership with the Jewish Book Council we are bringing in world-renowned authors from around the country for author events for the Orange County community. There are a variety of topics and subjects that appeal to everyone.
The Federation has books available in the office, please contact Pam by calling (845) 562-7860 or emailing office@jewishorangeny.org, to purchase one today, or purchase them the day of the event for author signing. See the pricing is below for each book.
If you are registering for a Zoom author event, you will receive the Zoom link upon completion of your registration.
Consider becoming a Sponsor for our JBC events to offset our costs. Various degrees of Sponsorship available, see below.
"Sarra Copia: A Locked-in Life"
Nancy Ludmerer
From the Publisher
The first official ghetto was established in Venice in 1516. Jews were locked in from sunset to sunrise in Canareggio, in the northernmost area of Venice. Sarra Copia: A Locked-in Life is historical fiction based on the title character, who lived there from her birth in 1592 until her death 49 years later. Sarra’s father, a successful merchant, encouraged and supported her secular as well as Hebrew education. She studied classical literature, music, and science, wrote poetry, and, years after her father’s death, established a literary salon in the ghetto. For three years, Sarra’s salon flourished, attended regularly by Catholic poets, intellectuals, and priests — until one priest, whom she considered a friend, publicly accused her of heresy, putting Sarra and the entire Jewish community in jeopardy from the Inquisition. The novella begins when Sara is eight. It portrays Sarra’s family relationships, takes us inside her salon, and explores her strong but troubled connections with the Christian world, a world that never forgave her for being a Jew.
"Help Wanted"
Adelle Waldman
From the Publisher
Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours — most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Team Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies. The members of Team Movement— including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path — band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.
Author Stuart E. Eizenstat
NEW DATE: Thursday, April, 3 | 6:30pm Dinner at Rhinebeck Reformed Church |7pm Via Zoom
The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements That Changed the World
"Stuart E. Eizenstat"
From the Publisher
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, 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.
2023/2024 JBC Recordings
Woke Antisemitism Monday Night Discussion with Author David L. Bernstein, Wendy Cedar & Donald Green