Fall Arts 2021: Reading is Lit!

September 3, 2021 Simone Ellin, Associate Editor

Emma Snyder is the owner of The Ivy Bookshop in Mount Washington. (Photo by Vincent Lupo)

A streamlined Baltimore Festival of Jewish Literature will be held throughout November.

Since 2018, Charm City bibliophiles have celebrated their love of Jewish-themed books and Jewish authors at the Baltimore Festival of Jewish Literature.

The brainchild of Ed Berlin, former co-owner of The Ivy Bookshop in Mount Washington, the event has grown to include sponsors and host sites across the Jewish community. Jmore has been a collaborator and media sponsor since the annual event’s founding.

This year’s festival will be held from Nov. 1 to Nov. 24 to coincide with “Jewish Book Month.”

Melissa Seltzer, senior director of community arts at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, a lead sponsor, says that the festival in past years has included dozens of events held at a slew of venues.

“Before, there were so many events that it was hard to keep it cohesive,” says Seltzer. “While it was incredible to be able to engage the broad diversity of the community, as a patron who wanted to go to all of the events, [it didn’t really] feel like you were attending a festival. Instead, it was like you were attending awesome independent events.”

As a result, the 2021 festival will be condensed into four major programs.

Though it is still in the planning stages, Seltzer says the festival will be part virtual and part in-person. One in-person event that has been confirmed will be a book talk with author Mark Oppenheimer, host of the podcast “Unorthodox.”

Prior to the pandemic, Oppenheimer was a visiting professor at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts’ “Wisdom Studio,” says Seltzer.

“The students really loved him, and he’s coming out with a book about [the Pittsburgh neighborhood] Squirrel Hill and the Tree of Life synagogue,” she says, alluding to the 2018 mass shooting there. “And so around that date of the tragedy, on Nov. 2, he’s going to come in-person to the Gordon Center and we’re going to have him here talking about his new book. I’m really excited for that.”

Seltzer says the second in-person event of the festival has not been announced yet, but she says it may take place at The Ivy.

“We’ve been working really closely with The Ivy, who’s been incredible at getting our books and working with the authors,” she says. “They have a beautiful new space that we haven’t been able to use yet. And so, they’ve offered to be a host. Everybody’s really jazzed about doing stuff with The Ivy.”

Another event that has been confirmed is a virtual talk with Dr. Ron Wolfson and Dr. Bruce Powell, authors of “Raising A+ Human Beings: Crafting a Jewish School Culture of Academic Excellence and AP Kindness” (Kripke Institute, Institute for School Culture).

“We’re hoping to work with some of the schools and the Center for Jewish Education to talk about that topic, and potentially bring a rabbi to also weigh in,” Seltzer says.

While the other two festival events have not yet been announced, Seltzer expects to see at least one family program.

“We’re really also thinking about young readers and different audiences than just our traditional Jewish literature festival patrons,” she says. “I’m really optimistic that now that we’re in-person and we’re going to have fewer events, everything is going to be bigger and more intentional and just more effective.”

For information about the Baltimore Festival of Jewish Literature and other JCC events, visit jcc.org. For information about events at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts, visit gordoncenter.com.