Breakout Sessions

Session 1 | Session 2

For the Love of Zion

Rich Cohen – Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and Its History
From the author of Tough Jews, comes a provocative book about the people and politics that shaped Israel in its youth. Part history, part polemic and politically unconstrained, it will be argued about for years.

Charles London – Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community
London’s latest book explores the Diaspora of Burma, Bosnia, Uganda, Cuba and Iran. He discovers communities of inspiring faith, longing for Zion yet determined to establish roots in cultures where they are the clear minority.

Rabbi Ian Pear - The Accidental Zionist
A man on an ice-cream diet. A pornographer. A wrestler named Chainsaw. Paul Revere. Though odd bedfellows, each of Pear’s characters contribute to the book’s powerful conclusion: To evoke change in Jewish lives, Judaism must evoke positive change in the world at large.

Moderated by: Professor Aaron Hahn Tapper, USF

Trotsky: His Life and Beyond

Bertrand M. Patenaude – Trotsky: Downfall Of A Revolutionary
Part history and part Hollywood detective story, Trotsky reconstructs the famous revolutionary’s years in exile, his relationships with Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo and his despair as Russian comrades fell victim to the Great Terror.

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh – When Skateboards Will Be Free
While pop stars and ballplayers decorated other kid’s bedrooms, bearded revolutionaries adorned Saïd’s walls. Poised between tragedy and farce, Skateboards captures a young writer’s struggle to break from his communist upbringing and create a voice of his own.

Moderated by: Professor Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing.

Emancipation

NPR’s Michael Goldfarb – Emancipation: How Liberating Europe’s Jews from The Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance
Against terrible odds, members of an isolated minority emerged from the ghetto to revolutionize history as writers, artists and social thinkers. Goldfarb, senior correspondent of Inside Out, details their struggle to create a place for themselves and ignite a renaissance in western culture.

In conversation with: Professor David Biale, UC Davis

Genre-Benders

Jonathan Ames – The Double Life Is Twice As Good: Essays and Fiction
The New York gonzo scribe and amateur boxer built a cult following with his fierce, hilarious style. With two novels adapted for film and a current HBO comedy series, Bored to Death, Ames is poised to leap into mainstream superstardom.

David Shields – The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
The award-winning author of Body Politic melds personal history with frank biological data about every stage of life, creating an autobiography of the human body. Shields examines the arc of human development in search of meaning in life, and in death.

Moderated by: Dan Schifrin, The Contemporary Jewish Museum

A Hidden Life

Johanna Reiss – A Hidden Life : A Memoir Of August 1969
In 1969, at her husband’s urging, Reiss returned to Holland to face painful memories of WWII. Her resulting memoir, The Upstairs Room, became a bestseller, but shortly after, her husband committed suicide. In A Hidden Life, Reiss plaintively wonders if her childhood anguish desensitized her to her spouse’s suffering.

Misguided Wisdom & Misinformation

Adam Garfinkle - Jewcentricity : Why the Jews Are Praised, Blamed and Used To Explain Just About Everything
Jews are news, or so the saying goes. But why? Garfinkle, former speechwriter for Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, looks deeply into the world’s obsession with Jews, positive and negative. Where does it come from, and where might it be going?

David Makovsky - Myths, Illusions, And Peace: Finding A New Direction for America in the Middle East
The author of Making Peace with the PLO contends that the U.S. has failed to broker peace due to false assumptions about Middle Eastern countries and leaders. Makovsky debunks fallacies and offers clear-eyed policies for the future. Myths, Illusions, and Peace is co-authored by National Security Council member, Dennis Ross.

Moderated by: Abby Porth, Jewish Community Relations Council.

Life Unscripted

Alice Eve Cohen - What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir
Cohen’s unflinchingly honest memoir shows us the metamorphosis of a woman accepting infertility to a woman in a high-risk pregnancy, struggling to love her womb’s tiny heartbeat. Her unexpected journey through doubt and a broken medical system reads like a thriller wrapped inside a most intimate diary.

Michael Greenberg - Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father’s Story of Love and Madness
Greenberg’ chronicles the summer when his fifteen year-old daughter had her first full-blown manic episode—an event that in a “single stroke” changed her identity and that of her entire family. Greenberg’s memoir shines a stark light on mental illness.

This is Where I Leave You

Jonathan Tropper - This Is Where I Leave You
The author of How to Talk to a Widower, Everything Changes and Plan B returns with a side-splitting, heartbreaking New York Times bestseller. This Is Where I Leave You is also being adapted into a Warner Brothers feature film.

In conversation with: Barbara Lane, JCCSF

Yiddishlands

Professor David G. Roskies- Yiddishlands: A Memoir
Roskies’s whirlwind tour of modern Yiddish culture recalls his remarkable family saga in a series of lively, irreverent stories. He asserts that Yiddish culture, spread through many different parts of the world, is learned through stories, songs, study and family folklore.

In conversation with: Professor Naomi Seidman, Graduate Theological Union

Taking Back God

Leora Tanenbaum- Taking Back God
Tanenbaum, author of SLUT! Growing Up Female with A Bad Reputation, gives voice to American women who love religion but hate their second-class status within it. Rather than abandoning faith, she contends women are transforming religion and strengthening it. But how do honored traditions synchronize with modern values?

In conversation with: Professor Deena Aranoff, Graduate Theological Union