Erica Baas

Rab­bi Dov Linz­er is the Pres­i­dent and Rab­binic Head of YCT Rab­bini­cal School of Yeshi­v­at Chovevei Torah. He has writ­ten for The For­ward, Tablet and The New York Times and pub­lished over 100 teshu­vot (respon­sa) and schol­ar­ly articles.

Abi­gail Pogre­bin is the author of My Jew­ish Year: 18 Hol­i­days, One Won­der­ing Jew which was a final­ist for a 2017 JBC Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award and Stars of David: Promi­nent Jews Talk About Being Jew­ish. She has writ­ten for The Atlantic, The For­ward, and Tablet, and mod­er­ates con­ver­sa­tions for The Stre­ick­er Cen­ter and Jew­ish Broad­cast­ing Service. Title: It Takes Two to Torah: An Ortho­dox Rab­bi and Reform Jour­nal­ist Dis­cuss and Debate Their Way Through the Five Books of Moses Description: For the first time, read­ers can take a tour of the entire Torah through the medi­um of a sin­gle instruc­tive, irrev­er­ent, involv­ing con­ver­sa­tion. Over a two-year peri­od, an Ortho­dox rab­bi and Reform jour­nal­ist talked through the Five Books of Moses with can­dor, humor, emo­tion, per­son­al rev­e­la­tion, and schol­ar­ship. Pogre­bin and Linz­er engaged in these short dia­logues — ten min­utes per par­sha — on a pod­cast for Tablet Mag­a­zine, and these live­ly exchanges have now been col­lect­ed and edit­ed by Fig Tree Books. Dov is a renowned expert in Torah, whose val­ues run egal­i­tar­i­an, but who has clear para­me­ters about what is cor­rect and com­fort­able when it comes to Jew­ish law. Abby is the relat­able every Jew in Amer­i­ca — immersed in Jew­ish life, but less through obser­vance and prayer; more through study, report­ing, syn­a­gogue, and com­mu­ni­ty. This book is for any­one look­ing to access […]

Lar­ry Tye is a for­mer reporter at The Boston Globe, off now writ­ing books and run­ning a Boston-based fel­low­ship pro­gram for health jour­nal­ists. The Jazzmen is his ninth book, with oth­ers includ­ing Home Lands, the upbeat tale of a thriv­ing Jew­ish dias­po­ra; Super­man, the biog­ra­phy of America’s longest-last­ing (Jew­ish) hero; and Bob­by Kennedy, which looks at RFK’s trans­for­ma­tion from Joe McCarthy’s pro­tege to a lib­er­al icon. Purchase a Copy Here The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America The Jazzmen looks main­ly at these three mae­stros’ lives off the band­stand, and how they wrote the sound­track for the civ­il rights rev­o­lu­tion. It also explores the Black-Jew­ish alliance of old— one where each of these African-Amer­i­can band­lead­ers had a Jew­ish man­ag­er and band­mates —and how that might offer a mod­el for today. The George Scoot Big Band will also be preforming at this event. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Hilary Zaid has been a Ten­nessee Williams Schol­ar at the Sewa­nee Writ­ers’ Con­fer­ence, a James D. Hous­ton Fel­low at the Com­mu­ni­ty of Writ­ers and a two-time atten­dance of Tin House Writ­ers’ Work­shop. Her work has appeared in Moth­er Jones, Eco­tone, Day One, Lilith Mag­a­zine, and else­where. Long-list­ed for the 2018 North­ern Cal­i­for­nia Inde­pen­dent Book­sellers’ Award for Fic­tion, her nov­el Paper is White is a 2018 Fore­word Indies sil­ver medal­ist and the win­ner of the 2018 Inde­pen­dent Pub­lish­ers’ Book Awards (IPPY) in LGBT+ Fic­tion. Her nov­el For­get I Told You This, is the inau­gur­al win­ner of the Bar­bara DiBernard Award. Title: For­get I Told You This Description: Amy Black, a sin­gle moth­er and an aspir­ing artist in love with cal­lig­ra­phy, dreams of a cov­et­ed artist’s res­i­den­cy at the world’s largest social media com­pa­ny, Q. When a stranger asks Amy to tran­scribe a love let­ter for him, his dis­ap­pear­ance leads her straight to Q — with the chance to style her­self a 21st-cen­tu­ry sofer­et—and to a group of data pri­va­cy vig­i­lantes who want her to burn Q to the ground. A very con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish nov­el about faith, free will and what it means to believe, For­get I Told You This asks us what it means to see and be seen in a world in which our every move is surveilled.