The theme of the Alper JCC’s 32nd annual Jewish Book Festival and Women’s Day Luncheon is The Power of Relationships – Personal & Political. Here are this month’s appearances:
Monday, Oct. 29
Francesca Segal
The Innocents
7:30 p.m. at Temple Beth Am
In her slyly humorous debut novel, The Innocents, Segal (daughter of Erich Segal of Love Story fame) illuminates the conflict between responsibility and passion, security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. Segal’s story is set in the upper crust Jewish community of North West London. Adam Newman, newly engaged and smugly self-satisfied, is forced to re-examine his life’s path when his fiancée’s prodigal cousin Ellie returns to London with rumors of a scandal swirling around her.
Tuesday, Oct. 30
Naomi Benaron
Running the Rift
7:30 p.m. at Bet Breira Samu-El Or Olom
Winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, Benaron’s first novel follows the life of Jean Patrick Nkuba, a gifted Rwandan boy, from the day he knows that running will be his life to the moment he must run to save his life. His country undone by Hutu-Tutsi tension, Patrick is thrust into a world where it is impossible to remain apolitical.
Thursday, Nov. 1
Iris Krasnow
The Secret Lives of Wives
7:30 p.m. • Temple Judea
Krasnow’s fresh and bold look at marriage challenges the traditional way of thinking about what it takes to achieve “happily-ever-after” and invites women to define for themselves what constitutes a satisfying relationship. Krasnow is the author of five books including the New York Times bestseller Surrendering to Marriage.
Sunday, Nov. 4
Lloyd Constantine
Journal of the Plague Year
Ira Shapiro
The Last Great Senate
Courage and Statesmanship in
Times of Crisis
7:30 p.m. at the Alper JCC
Constantine was senior advisor to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer when “Client No. 9” entered our vernacular. Journal of the Plague Year is an intimate account of the 61 hours from the phone call revealing the scandal through Spitzer’s resignation in a national news conference.
In The Last Great Senate, Shapiro looks back to when senators like Howard Baker, Ted Kennedy, Jacob Javitz and Bob Dole worked in a bi-partisan fashion to the address the nation’s challenges. Shapiro was a senior Senate staffer and served as general counsel in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Clinton administration. Wednesday, Nov. 7
Moshe Arens
Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto
The Untold Story of the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising
7:30 p.m. at the
Miller Center
– UM Campus
On the eve of Passover 1943, German forces entered the Warsaw ghetto equipped with tanks, flamethrowers and machine guns. Against them stood an army of a few hundred young Jewish men and women armed with pistols and Molotov cocktails. Israel’s former Minister of Defense Professor Arens recounts the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a true tale of daring, courage and sacrifice.
Women’s Day Luncheon
Thursday, Nov. 8
Delia Ephron
The Lion Is In
The Coral Gables Country Club
9:30 a.m. Boutiques Open
11 a.m. Program Begins
Ephron’s latest novel follows a runaway bride and kleptomaniac, an audacious beauty and recovering alcoholic, and the wife of a Holy Roller minister who go on the lam together. When their car breaks down, the unlikely heroines seek shelter in an abandoned nightclub where they meet a lion named Marcel. Through their growing admiration and love for Marcel, the women are able to confront their complicated pasts, embrace new relationships and ultimately navigate their way back to their own hearts. Bestselling author and screenwriter, Ephron’s movies include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, You’ve Got Mail, Hanging Up and Michael. Women’s Day includes lunch and boutique shopping. Reservations are required.
For more information, call 305-271- 9000, ext. 268, or log on to
