Registering for a Book Festival event is easy!
How to register for events:
By phone: 419-724-0351
By email: sherry@jewishtoledo.org
Online: https://form.jotform.com/jewishtoledo/bookfestival23
At the door: on a first come, first served basis. Seating is limited.
Questions? Contact Hallie Freed at 419-724-0362 or hallie@jewishtoledo.org
All programs are subject to change or cancellation without prior notification due to schedules and commitments of our authors. Refunds will be available.
All featured author books will be available for presale. Limited books will be available for sale at and after all in person events.
Malkah’s Notebook: A Journey into the Mystical Aleph-Bet
by Mira Amiras
Sunday, October 22 at 5 p.m. *new time*
Sekach Building, 6505 Sylvania Ave.
$18 per adult – includes film screening, author presentation, and dinner
$40 per adult – includes film screening, author presentation, dinner, and book
Malkah is a child when her father tries teaching her to read Torah. But they don’t get very far. As Malkah studies, her questions multiply. She discovers an earlier, hidden story of creation within the Hebrew Aleph-Bet letters in the first line of Genesis, and a door opens. Malkah’s discovery takes her on a lifelong journey in search of her beginnings—into Jewish mystical texts, far-off places, archaeological
digs, ancient gods, and ultimately into the nature of existence itself.
At this immersive event, attendees will accompany Malkah on her profound journey, as Amiras introduces Malkah’s story through a conversation about her book with Jolie Sheffer, professor of English and American Studies at Bowling Green State University, as well as a screening of Amira’s award winning short film, The Day Before Creation, a companion to the book.
Mira Z Amiras is an anthropologist, author, and award-winning filmmaker. She has lived, studied, and traveled throughout the Middle East and North Africa, camped out 7,000 miles through Africa, across the Sahara, heading south from Algiers to Nairobi, and traveled overland from Istanbul to the Nepalese border. She lives in San Francisco with her family.
The Marriage Box: A Novel
by Corie Adjmi
Thursday, October 26 at 7 p.m.
Wildwood Preserve Metroparks,
Ward Pavilion, 4830 W. Central Ave.
$10 – includes author presentation, heavy appetizers (vegetarian charcuterie table, sangria bar, and sweet treats)
$25 – includes author presentation, heavy appetizers, and book
Casey Cohen, a Middle Eastern Jew, is a sixteen-year-old in New Orleans in the 1970s when she starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then she gets in trouble and her parents turn her whole world upside down by deciding to return to their roots, the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. In this new and foreign world, families gather weekly for Shabbat dinner, parties are extravagant events at the Museum of Natural History, and the Marriage Box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands. Casey is at first shocked by this unfamiliar culture, but after she meets Michael, she’s enticed by it.
Corie Adjmi grew up in New Orleans and started writing in her thirties. When
she is not writing, Corie does volunteer work, cooks, bikes, and hikes. She and her
husband have five children and several grandchildren, with more on the way. She
lives and works in New York City.
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
by Scott Hershovitz
Thursday, November 9 at 7 p.m.
Inside the Five – 5703 Main St., Sylvania
$18 – includes dinner and author presentation
$36 – includes dinner, author presentation, and book
Scott Hershovitz has two young sons, Rex and Hank. From the time they could talk, he noticed that they raised philosophical questions and were determined to answer them. They recreated ancient arguments. And they advanced entirely new ones. That’s not unusual, Hershovitz says. Every kid is a philosopher.
Following an agenda set by Rex and Hank, Hershovitz takes us on a fun romp through classic and contemporary philosophy, powered by questions like, Does Hank have the right to drink soda? When is it okay to swear? and, Does the number six exist? Hershovitz and his boys take on more weighty issues too. They explore punishment, authority, sex, gender, race, the nature of truth and knowledge, and the existence of G-d. Along the way, they get help from professional philosophers, famous and obscure.
Hershovitz is the Thomas G. and Mabel Long Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at The University of Michigan. He directs the University’s Law and Ethics Program and co-edits Legal Theory. Before joining the Michigan faculty, Hershovitz served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court and an attorney-advisor on the appellate staff of the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice.
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments
by Joe Posnanski
Sunday, November 12 at 6 p.m.
Shorty’s Back Forty,
5215 Monroe St.
$18 – includes author
presentation and dinner (salmon, Impossible Burger sloppy joes, green beans, mac & cheese,
salad, and other treats)
$40 – includes author presentation, dinner, and book
A love letter to baseball, and the follow-up to last year’s runaway bestseller The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski's new book, Why We Love Baseball, is equally essential reading, now about the game's top 50 moments. Willie Mays’s catch. Babe Ruth’s called shot. Kirk Gibson’s limping home run. Moments like these have been described again and again, and in Why We Love Baseball, they are looked at anew, told from unique perspectives. Joe Posnanski is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of six books, including Paterno and The Secret of Golf. He has written for The Athletic, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, and The Kansas City Star and currently writes at JoePosnanski.com. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his family.
Bessie: A Novel
by Linda Kass
Thursday, November 16 at 12 p.m.
Congregation B’nai Israel, 6525 Sylvania Ave.
$5 – includes kosher luncheon & author presentation
$15 – includes kosher luncheon, author presentation, and book
(Generously funded by Jewish Senior Services Supporting Organization)
Just days after the close of World War II, Bess Myerson, the daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants living in the Bronx, is competing in the Miss America pageant. At stake: a $5,000 scholarship. The tension and excitement in Atlantic City’s Warner Theatre are palpable, especially for traumatized Jews rooting for one of their own. So begins Bessie.
Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, who, in 1945 at age 21, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America. This intimate fictional portrait is a tender study of a bold young woman living at a precarious moment in our cultural history as she searches for love and acceptance, eager to make her mark on the world.
Linda Kass is the author of two previous historical novels, Tasa’s Song and A Ritchie Boy. Linda began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. She is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Columbus, Ohio.
2023 Jewish Book Festival Committee
Cynthia Bramson
Lindsay Folkerth
Judi Fox
Lois Levison
Andy Richards
Sue Richards
Janet Rogolsky
Lauren Sachs
Judy Weinberg
The Northwest Ohio Jewish Book Festival would like to acknowledge the following for their generous support and partnership:
• Toledo Jewish Community Foundation Long Term Community Needs Fund
• Paul Goldner & Sandy Soifer from the Goldner Family Donor Advised Fund
• Jack Jr. and Nora Romanoff Donor Advised Fund