Federation Star - February 2018

presented by
OF GREATER NAPLES
* Events with green banners are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. *
Wednesday, February 14, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Temple Shalom • Topic: Memoir
Peter Gethers – My Mother’s Kitchen Annabelle Gurwitch –
Peter Gethers wants to give his aging mother a spectacular feast
featuring her favorite dishes. The problem is he doesn’t know
how to cook. So he embarks upon an often hilarious and always
touching culinary journey that will allow him to prepare the
meal of his mother’s dreams. When Judy Gethers, daughter of
a restaurateur – legendary New York Ratner’s – was in her 50s,
she discovered a passion for cooking. She became a mentor to
famous chefs, including Wolfgang Puck, and taught alongside
Julia Child. Peter has written a memoir about how food and family
can do much more than feed us – they can nourish our souls.
Peter Gethers is an author, screenwriter, playwright, book editor,
and film and television producer. His eleven previous books
include The Cat Who Went to Paris, the first in a bestselling
trilogy about his extraordinary cat, Norton.
Jane Healey – The Saturday Evening Girls Club
For four young immigrant women living in Boston’s North End in the early
1900s, escaping tradition doesn’t come easy. But at least they have one another
and the Saturday Evening Girls Club, a social pottery-making group offering
respite from their hectic home lives – and hope for a better future. The friends
face family clashes and romantic entanglements, career struggles and cultural
prejudice. But through their unfailing bond, they draw strength to transform
their immigrant stories into the American lives of their dreams. The book is
based on the true story of the Saturday Evening Girls Club.
Jane Healey was inspired to write The Saturday Evening Girls Club after
learning of the group’s history while researching an article on their namesake
pottery, also known as Paul Revere Pottery.
Sana Krasikov – The Patriots: A Novel
When Florence Fein abandons her middle-class Brooklyn Jewish family in
1934 for a steamer ship to the Soviet Union, she believes she’s seeking the
secular feminist promises that the Great Depression denied so many American
women. But once trapped in Stalin’s USSR, she suffers the travails of Soviet
Jewry through an American’s eyes. Decades later, her son Julian – an émigré
Wednesday, March 7, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Temple Shalom • Topic: Fiction
Wherever You Go, There They Are
When Annabelle Gurwitch was a child, surrounded by a cast
of epically dysfunctional relatives, she secretly prayed that it
was all a terrible mistake. She longed to be part of a loving and
supportive family. Gurwitch writes about the family she tried
to escape and the ones she joined by accident or on purpose,
including her southern ancestors, the theater tribe, and an adult
summer camp for vegans. If she’s learned anything, it’s that no
matter how hard you try to escape your crazy family, you just
end up being part of another crazy family.
Annabelle Gurwitch is the author of the three books, including
New York Times bestseller I See You Made an Effort. She
is a regular commentator on NPR and a former host of Dinner
and a Movie on TBS. Other numerous television appearances
include Boston Legal, Seinfeld and Murphy Brown.
Monday, February 26, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Naples Conf. Ctr. • Debut Fiction Panel
Renée Rosen – Windy City Blues
Windy City Blues, set in 1950s and ’60s Chicago, is the riveting
story of Leeba Groski, a young Jewish Polish immigrant,
and Red Dupree, a black blues guitarist who left the south
to play in the burgeoning Chicago music scene. Shunned by
Leeba’s Orthodox Jewish family, Leeba and Red risk threats
of violence in an era in American history that frowned on
mixed-race couples. Renée skillfully reconstructs the racial
tensions and vibrant music scene that defined Chicago during
those decades as she weaves this story of forbidden romance
into the history of Chess Records and the birth of the blues and
rock ’n’ roll in Chicago.
Renée Rosen is the bestselling author of White Collar Girl,
What the Lady Wants, Dollface, and the young adult novel,
Every Crooked Pot.
Friday, March 16, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Unitarian Univ. Cong. • $15/$20 at the door
Alan Zweibel – For This We Left Egypt?
Join us for an afternoon of humor as five-time
Emmy Award-winner Alan Zweibel entertains us
with his jokes and stories. A television writer for
Saturday Night Live, Curb Your Enthusiasm and
It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, his theatre credits
include collaborating with Billy Crystal on the
Tony Award-winning play 700 Sundays.
Alan Zweibel has written several books, including Bunny, Bunny: Gilda Radner,
A Sort of Love Story, which he wrote following Gilda’s death. His novel The Other
Shulman won the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor. He is one of the coauthors
of For This We Left Egypt, a parody of the Passover Haggadah, which
he wrote with comedians Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach. In this somewhat
irreverent book, the authors take you through the Seder, from getting rid of all
the chametz in your home to a retelling of the Passover story, including wrapping
up the evening by taking at least forty-five minutes to say good-bye to everyone.
SOLD OUT
Sponsored by
Naples Jewish Cong.
to New York – returns to Putin’s Moscow to redeem his mother’s betrayals.
The Patriots explores the entangled relationship of two superpowers as it
played out across three generations of one Jewish-American family.
Sana Krasikov was born in Ukraine and grew up in the Republic of Georgia
and the U.S. In 2017 she was named one of Granta’s Best Young American
Novelists. Her collection One More Year has won numerous awards.
Ellen Umansky – The Fortunate Ones
Sponsored by U.S. Bank
and JFCS
Sponsored by
Beth Tikvah
Vienna, 1939. Rose’s parents secure passage for their young daughter on
a kindertransport to England. After the war, grief-stricken Rose searches
out a piece of her childhood: the Chaim Soutine painting her mother had
cherished. In modern-day Los Angeles, Lizzie carries a burden of guilt. As
a teenager, Lizzie threw a party and the Soutine painting that had provided
comfort after her mother had died was stolen. The painting will bring Lizzie
and Rose together, and ignite a friendship, eventually revealing secrets that
hold painful truths.
Ellen Umansky’s writing has been published in The New York Times, Slate and
Playboy, as well as in the short-story anthologies Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction
from the Edge and Sleepaway: Writings on Summer Camp. She has worked
in the editorial departments of the Forward, Tablet and The New Yorker.
Sponsored by
Temple Shalom Sisterhood
Marilyn Simon Rothstein – Lift and Separate
Lift and Separate is the story of Marcy Hammer, a Jewish
woman forced to restart her life after husband Harvey, the bra
king, leaves her for a perkier fit. Even though she is devastated
by his departure, she still has her indomitable spirit and selfrespect.
She has no intention of falling apart, either, even when
her adult children drop a few bombshells of their own, and she
discovers a secret about her new, once-in-a-lifetime best friend.
Life may be full of setbacks, but by lifting herself up by her
own lacy straps, Marcy finds a way to begin again.
Marilyn Rothstein graduated with a journalism degree from
New York University, and worked for Seventeen. When she
moved to Connecticut, she launched an advertising agency,
which she ran for more than 25 years. At the age of 43, she
became an adult bat mitzvah, achieving her lifelong goal of
chanting Torah.
Monday, April 9, 2:30 - 4:15 pm
Beth Tikvah • $15/$20 at the door
Sponsored by
Hadassah
Abigail Pogrebin – My Jewish Year
Although she grew up with some basic holiday rituals,
Abigail Pogrebin realized how little she knew about
the origins, purpose and current relevance of the entire
Jewish calendar. She wanted to understand what had kept
the oldest traditions vibrant and the more-recently-added
holidays urgent. She embarked on an entire year of research,
observance and writing about every ritual, fast and festival
in one Jewish year. Whether you’re seeking an accessible,
digestible roadmap for Jewish life or a fresh take on what you’ve been practicing
for a lifetime, Abigail’s journey will leave you educated, charmed and inspired.
Abigail Pogrebin is the author of Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk about
Being Jewish, and One and the Same, about life as a twin. Her bestselling Kindle
Single, Showstopper, chronicled her teenage adventure in a rare Sondheim flop
on Broadway. A former producer for 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose, she moderates
her own interview series at the JCC Manhattan.
For Festival updates, links to author websites and more,
visit the official Festival website at www.JewishBookFestival.org