In 2019, chef Leah Koenig published The Jewish Cookbook (2019), a compendium of more than 400 recipes ranging from the New York-born combination of bagels and lox to a Mexico City chef’s chili-infused reimagining of matzo ball soup. Koenig will be discussing her newest project — Portico (2023), an exploration of food in the Jewish communities of Rome — at this year’s New York Jewish Book Festival, returning to the city on November 12.
The second annual weeklong event, taking place at Lower Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, features author talks and kid-centric events, and spotlights the institution’s newly opened interactive exhibition Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark.
Other highlights include Mitch Albom’s discussion of his soon-to-be-published novel The Little Lie (2023), which confronts grief, guilt, and redemption as it narrates the story of a young boy in a small Greek town who survives the Holocaust along with his two friends. Over two decades ago, Albom penned the bestselling memoir Tuesdays With Morrie (2002) about the time he shared with his Brandeis University professor Morrie Schwartz, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, at the end of his life.
The last day of the festival, on November 19, will be entirely dedicated to family-friendly activities. Among other events, author and illustrator Jen Kostman will host an interactive reading of Ella Kvellephant and the Search for Bubbe’s Yiddish Treasure (2023). The picture book teaches kids Yiddish words as it follows a tiny elephant searching for the language spoken by her grandmother. Another activity will focus solely on Jewish board books for toddlers.
The festival is held alongside the Museum of Jewish Heritage’s latest exhibition, which opened October 15 and is on view indefinitely. Courage to Act tells the story of the united effort that saved 95% of Jewish people (around 7,000 individuals) in Nazi-occupied Denmark by shuttling them across the Baltic Sea to safety in Sweden. The exhibition features the physical boat “Gerda III” that saved at least 300 Jewish people and includes multimedia testimony from the woman who spearheaded the ship’s operation, Henny Sinding Sundø.
Some of the talks taking place during the New York Jewish Book Festival will center narratives from this slice of history. Author Ralph Shayne will discuss his recently published Hour of Need (2023), a graphic novel illustrated by Tatiana Goldberg that relates the story of a Jewish family forced into hiding and ultimately rescued by their community in a small shipping boat that carries them to Sweden. Lois Lowry, who is not Jewish but who wrote the 2011 children’s novel Number the Stars about the Danish rescue mission, will close out the fair. Her talk will be accompanied by songs from the musical adaptation of her award-winning book. A complete list of events and activities can be found on the festival’s website.
