Jewish Community Center Cultural Arts & Book Series

As part of Yale University’s Jewish Lives series, renowned journalist Jane Eisner has written a biography of the iconic singer and songwriter. Carole King: She Made the Earth Move delves into Carole King’s origins in a working-class section of Brooklyn and her marriage to husband and collaborator Gerry Goffin. Together they wrote for artists such as the Shirelles, Aretha Franklin, The Animals, The Monkees and many others. King’s solo career produced a body of work that is stunning. Her groundbreaking album Tapestry held the record for longest charting album by a female soloist for over 40 years and earned four Grammy awards. Drawing on numerous interviews as well as historic and contemporary sources, this book brings to life King’s professional accomplishments, her personal challenges, and her lasting contributions to the Great American Songbook.

Featuring performances by student ensembles and faculty of the University of Dayton Department of Music, including Bella Voce, directed by Professor Paula Powell.

In partnership with the University of Dayton Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, Department of Music, Alumni Chair in the Humanities, and Jewish Federation’s Women’s Philanthropy

The Forgotten Italian Restaurant is the third and concluding book in author and teacher Barbara Josselsohn’s series, Sisters of War. The story alternates between World War II and the present day. When her sister died, Callie went back to her family home in Connecticut where she found an old, faded menu that sheds light on her grandmother’s secret life in Caccipulia, Italy. This intergenerational story ties Callie to her grandmother and sheds light on the reason her grandmother left Italy. When Callie arrives in the village of Caccipulia with the faded menu she found in Connecticut, she meets a café owner who helps expose the secret that will change everything. The novel explores themes of family, identity, forgiveness, and the courage to heal while vividly depicting Italian wartime life and later day village life.

In Partnership with Washington-Centerville Public Library, Hadassah, and JCC Book Club

Bill Rabinowitz is the Columbus Dispatch’s longtime Ohio State beat writer, covering the Buckeyes since 2011. He is also the author of Buckeye Rebirth, written about the team’s 2012 undefeated season and The Chase. In his current work, Buckeye Brotherhood, Bill Rabinowitz takes readers inside the Ohio State Buckeye’s run to their first national championship in a decade. Much had changed in the ten years since the last championship. OSU was able to place losses to Michigan and Oregon behind them and build their own brand of football. In doing so, they brought glory back to OSU.

In partnership with Jewish Federation’s Men’s Philanthropy

Gursha, which loosely translates as the act of “feeding one another” is the debut cookbook by Ethiopian Israeli chef and restaurateur Beejhy Barhany, cowritten with food writer Elisa Ung. Barhany traces her life from childhood in Tigray, Ethiopia, to exile in Sudan, then on to Israel, and ultimately settling in Harlem, New York, where she founded Tsion Café. Through personal essays and stories, she frames her recipes in the context of Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) history and identity. Her work includes over 100 recipes, legamat (Sudanese doughnuts), and shakshuka, as well as hybrids like Berbere Fried Fish, Injera, and Queen of Sheba Chocolate Cake.

In partnership with Beth Abraham Sisterhood and Men’s Club

Lee Yaron, author of 10/7: 100 Human Stories is, at 30, the youngest winner of the National Jewish Book Award. In her masterful work, she weaves stories illuminating the lives of a very unusual group that illustrates the diversity and complexity of Israeli society. Her portraits include peace activists, Bedouins, Israeli Arabs, Nepalese guest workers, Holocaust survivors and refugees from Ukraine. An investigative journalist, Yaron’s work describes the richness of their lives and places them within the broader context of the war that devastated the land of Israel. To her credit, she does not just dwell on the last moments before the horrendous attack, she delves into the intricacies of their lives, their hopes, and dreams.

Howard Megdal is a journalist and editor who has spent his career boosting the quality of women’s sports. He has covered a wide variety including baseball, basketball, and soccer. In this work, he presents a multifaceted portrait of Clark’s superstardom. Not only is Clark one of the most dominant faces of the WNBA, she is also known globally for her basketball prowess. Megdal delves deeply into the lineage of women’s basketball in the state of Iowa where Clark was born and raised. He is able to trace the development of Iowa women’s basketball from the popular 1920s 6-on-6 game and examines Caitlyn Clark’s style of play in the light of those who preceded her.

Sarah Hurwitz has written a powerful, personal, and political reflection on what it means to be Jewish in today’s world. Hurwitz, former speechwriter for Michelle Obama, writes from the perspective of someone who returned to Judaism as an adult after years of disconnection. The book is part memoir, part cultural commentary, and part call to action. Hurwitz insists that being Jewish is not something to apologize for, hide, or water down. She challenges both external antisemitism and internalized shame, urging Jews to embrace their history, culture, and spirituality with pride and clarity. She critiques how Jews are often left out of conversations about oppression or even blamed for privilege. As a Jew is a deeply thoughtful and impassioned work that invites Jews, especially secular, progressive, or culturally affiliated ones—to reexamine their relationship to their Jewishness in a world that often misunderstands or misrepresents them. It’s about reclaiming a powerful story and refusing to be silenced.

The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic by Gila Fine is a groundbreaking and thought-provoking work of literary and Talmudic interpretation. Fine explores the portrayal of women in the Talmud using tools of modern literary theory, feminist criticism, and close textual analysis to reread classical rabbinic texts. The title alludes to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sandra Gilbert, and Susan Gubar’s famous feminist metaphor of the “madwoman in the attic” – the silenced woman hidden from view – and applies it to women who appear in the margins of Jewish sacred texts. Fine examines the six named heroines of the Talmud Yalta the shrew, Homa the femme fatale, Marta the prima donna, Heruta the madonna/whore, Beuria the overreaching, and Ima Shalom, the angel in the house – revealing that there is more to these women than meets the eye.

The author of several books and many articles in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and others, Richard Kreitner turns to the story of the engagement of American Jews in the moral and political dramas of the Civil War era. Kreitner tells the story through the lives of six American Jews who shaped the complexities of the time. They include Judah P. Benjamin, a brilliant Louisiana senator who became Jefferson Davis’s confidant, as well as three rabbis spanning the political spectrum. We also learn about August Bondi, who fought with John Brown in the Bleeding Kansas affair, and the Polish émigré Ernestine Rose, an ardent abolitionist who championed “emancipation for all kinds.” As they struggle to make sense of a polarized time, American Jews debated with one another about religion, morality, and politics – conversations that prefigure many of our own today.

In partnership with Temple Israel, as part of the Ryterband Lecture Series, and the Miami Valley Jewish Genealogy & History

Christopher Gorham, a lawyer, an educator and acclaimed author of The Confidante, has written a book about a lesser-known segment of the life of Henri Matisse. Rather than focusing on his earlier Fauvist or postwar paintings, Gorham delves into Matisse’s wartime creativity and moral resolve. After a number of personal crises such as surgery, the dissolution of his 42-year marriage, and the departure of many of his friends in the artistic and intellectual community, Matisse decided to stay in France. This had horrendous consequences for him and his family. His daughter Marguerite was arrested, tortured, and deported to Ravensbrück but escaped when Allied bombing halted her transport. Two of his other children worked in the resistance movement. Through the horrors of war, Matisse continued to produce works of art even though they were condemned by the Nazis. He experimented with paper cuts and collage techniques and produced works such as The Fall of Icarus, and the much-lauded book, Jazz.

In partnership with Bethany Village and Jewish Family Services of Greater Dayton

In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. As awareness of this underworld spread across America, so did antisemitism. This is why a coterie of affluent German-Jewish uptowners decided to take matters into their own hands. Worried about the anti-immigration lobby and the uncertain future of all Jewish Americans, the uptowners organized a secret vice squad. This squad, known as the “incorruptibles” took the fight to the heart of crime in the city, waging war on the sin they saw as threatening the future of the community. Dan Slater tells an epic saga of crime and redemption, exhuming a buried history that shaped our modern world. The Incorruptibles was described by the New York Times as “unrivaled” and was chosen as an editor’s pick.

In partnership with Bethany Village and Jewish Family Services of Greater Dayton