JewishBookFestival.org — that’s us!

by Gayle Dorio, JBF Chair

I was interested in what other Jewish Book Festivals were doing and, of course, I began googling. Where was that ability when I was young? Right. I googled Jewish book festivals, oldest Jewish book festival in USA and some similar things. The first website that popped up was Jewish Book Festival/Jewish Federation of Greater Naples. Our website! Maybe that’s because computers are smart and eat cookies or something like that and just know that Naples is home for me … or maybe it’s because our Jewish Book Festival is wonderful and deserves to come up first!

Our Jewish Book Festival, going into its 8th year, appeared in the first position. Go directly to www.jewishbookfestival. org or www.jewishnaples.org and click on “Major Events” to get there. There is so much information on what we have in store for you this season.

I spent time checking out other book festivals. Some have book weeks, some do panels, some have four to six authors each day. It was interesting to read that Detroit claims to be the oldest; Miami, St Louis and others have been around much longer than ours. Checking how other areas promote their book festivals is interesting but none compares to ours. We are proud to say that our Jewish Book Festival has earned a solid reputation. We have you, a wonderfully engaged audience that turns out in large numbers to appreciate the authors and books presented.

Did you tune in to the Preview Event held Sept. 29? It’s recorded and can be found on our website in case you missed it. Many thanks to Iris Shur and Steve Yussen who put the Preview together. Many committee members participated in showcasing the upcoming events.

There will be 14 events, beginning on Nov. 1 and ending on March 22. In all, 16 authors will discuss their new books. Nine events will be on Zoom; five will be held in person and will be livestreamed for those of you who prefer the virtual method of participating. With varied topics, fiction and nonfiction, we know you will enjoy this season’s books and authors.

Please go to our website to register and join us. Better yet, support our community by signing up to be a Patron. We’d love to increase the numbers of Patrons and Sponsors. The more support, the more Jewish Federation of Greater Naples is able to provide the services that make our community vibrant and caring. I thank you in advance! Below, we share with you Carl Sagan’s expression of what books mean to him. His reference to magic at the end made me think back to author and magician, Joshua Jay, who recently spoke to our audience. Yes, many of us feel books are magic!

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.

But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.

Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.

Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

Carl Sagan, Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)