

The Cultural Arts & Book Series educates and entertains every year, offering outstanding programming that promotes awareness, appreciation and pride in the diversity of the Jewish people and community.
CABS 2022 – Check out this year’s stellar line up!

CABS OPENING NIGHT
RITA RUDNER
My Life in Dog Years
Thursday, October 20 @ 7 PM
Livestream at The Funny Bone
(88 Plum St., The Greene, 45440)
Comedy show with special guest Karen Jaffe
Cost: $18 person, includes 1 drink ticket
CLICK HERE to Purchase Tickets
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My Life In Dog Years is the autobiography of comedian, bestselling author, screenwriter, playwright and actress Rita Rudner. From a difficult childhood to dancing in New York at fifteen to becoming a Johnny Carson favorite to headlining in Las Vegas to motherhood, Rita wittily explains her eventful life journey. The one constant in her life has been her dogs –Tiny, Agatha, Bonkers, Twinkle and Betsy. She explains, “Across the decades, I have depended on the steady, non-judgmental, immensely-satisfying love that only dogs can bring.”

WAYNE HOFFMAN
The End of Her; Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder
Special Guest: Holly Elkins-Lopez,
Education Programs Manager for the Alzheimers Association, Miami Valley Chapter
Monday, October 24, @ 7 PM via Zoom, Cost: Free
CLICK HERE to Register
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The End of Her is a story of a Jewish family’s immigration to the New World: rising from poverty to wealth as cattle dealers and (possibly) bootleggers, then shattering apart after a murder. It’s also the story of a present-day Jewish family, struggling with memory loss and mortality, trying to understand what earlier generations endured. A heavily researched true-crime family memoir, it alternates between past and present, relying on interviews, official documents, long-lost photos, and dozens of newspaper stories. It’s a story that spans Jewish time and geography, from the Catskills to Winnipeg’s North End, from a Ukrainian shtetl to Jersey City, from Greenwich Village to rural Saskatchewan, from suburban D.C. to the top of Masada.

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George had it all. A lovely wife. Two beautiful adult children. A condo on the grounds of the Boca Raton Resort & Club. But when his wife dies, he’s alone in retirement. A lost man. Sure, he has his golf buddies to console him. But when his friend Willy dies, George is caught off-guard. Why did Willy’s family stay away from the funeral? Why did the check to the mortuary bounce? And why did George and his buddies have to pay to bury him? More importantly, what can George learn from Willy’s life to escape making the same foolish mistakes?

JCC + JFS Joint CABS Event
JFS Resource Fair:
Sunday, October 30 @ 2:45 PM
Followed by:
SHARONA HOFFMAN
Aging With a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow
Sunday, October 30 @ 4 PM, Boonshoft CJCE (525 Versailles Drive, Centerville 45459)
Cost for both events: Free
CLICK HERE to Register
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This Joint JFS and JCC CABS program is a must! Join JFS to learn about local area resources that can support your aging plan for you and your loved ones. Resources will include providers from a multitude of support systems – housing, social, medical, legal, financial and more! Stay to hear Sharon Hoffman talk about her book, a concise and comprehensive resource for people who are middle-aged and beyond and are facing the prospects of their own aging and of caring for elderly relatives — an often overwhelming task for which little in life prepares us. Using an interdisciplinary approach and many personal anecdotes, Sharona Hoffman develops recommendations for building sustainable social, legal, medical, financial, and other support systems for aging and caregiving. Aging with a Plan combines thorough research with engaging anecdotes and practical advice. It covers one-stop shopping for anyone in need of guidance without much time for independent research. The book answers questions such as: What legal documents should you be sure to have? What expenses should you anticipate in retirement and how do you save for them? What do you need to know about medical care as you or your loved ones grow older? How should you approach conversations about the sensitive topic of safe driving with elderly loved ones? What options exist for end-of-life care, and how do you make sure that your wishes will be followed?

ELLEN FRANKEL
The Deadly Scrolls: Book One in the Jerusalem Mysteries
Monday, November 7 @ 7 PM via Zoom
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE to Register
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What could possibly bring together Israeli politicians, devout young Christians, ardent Zionists, and Islamic terrorists? Virtually nothing — except this compelling mystery novel, set in contemporary Jerusalem, which depicts their clash as they crash and thrash through the sands of the Qumran desert in their fear-fueled pursuit of an ancient treasure scroll.

ANDREW LAWLER
Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City
Wednesday, November 9 @ 7 PM
Q and A with Dr. Dorian Borbonus, Associate Professor of History
Livestream at The Torch Lounge, University of Dayton Kennedy Union (300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469)
Cost: $6 person – free with student ID
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR!
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Sacred to three faiths and revered by more than half the people on the planet, Jerusalem conjures up powerful images of the celestial. Yet beneath its narrow alleys and holy places, the ancient city conceals a labyrinthine, three-dimensional time capsule recording five millennia of bustling prosperity, brutal war, and repeated religious innovation that altered the course of human history.

DEBBY APPLEGATE
Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age
Sunday, November 13 @ 7 PM, The Dayton Woman’s Club (225 N Ludlow St, Dayton, OH 45402)
Jazz concert, followed by the author
Cost: $12
CLICK HERE to Purchase Tickets
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Madam is the biography of Polly Adler (1900−1962), the most infamous and influential madam in Jazz Age New York. Her 1953 memoir, A House is Not A Home, sold 2 million books and became a 1963 movie starring Shelley Winters. More than a biography, this is a colorful and unusual history of Jewish life told through the perspective of a “good Jewish girl” from a Russian shtetl who immigrated to Brooklyn and rose to become “the female Al Capone” and one of the most renowned Jewish-American women in the 20th century. Her brothels were underworld salons that catered to everyone from the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers to Walter Winchell, Frank Sinatra, Desi Arnaz, the Algonquin Roundtable, Dutch Schultz and Meyer Lansky, and, it was rumored, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, CATHY BARROW IS UNABLE TO TRAVEL TO DAYTON FOR HER SCHEDULED VISIT.
THIS EVENT WILL BE RESCHEDULED – WATCH FOR UPDATES!
CATHY BARROW
Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish
Wednesday, November 16 @ 6:30 PM, The Boonshoft CJCE (525 Versailles Drive, Centerville, Ohio 45459)
Cost: $18 person, includes an appetizing bagel nosh during this food-based presentation
CLICK HERE to Purchase Tickets
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Bagel lovers rejoice! This thorough yet accessible cookbook demystifies bagel making with just five base ingredients and straightforward techniques for making the dough, shaping the bagels, proofing, boiling, baking, storing, and more. Recipes include two dozen variations on the New York bagel, with classic and innovative flavors ranging from sesame to blueberry and hatch chile jack, as well as homemade spreads, schmears, pickles, and other delicious favorites, like home-smoked Nova and smoked whitefish Salad, for maximum grazing. Home bakers of all levels will delight in these reliable recipes and share them as a hostess, house warming, or Yom Kippur gift. With suggested menus for fun brunches and gatherings, photos of finished food and step-by-step techniques, and a charming nosh aesthetic, this is both a comprehensive baking resource and a playful guide to making one of America’s best-loved foods.

LIZ SHEIER
Never Simple
Tuesday, November 29 @ 7 PM via Zoom
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE to Register
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Scheier’s mother, Judith, was a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and — when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life — a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother told her two important things: one, she had been married for most of Scheier’s life to a man she’d never heard of, and two, the man she’d told Scheier was her father was entirely fictional. She’d made him up. Those two big lies were the start but not the end; it took dozens of smaller lies to support them, and by the time she was done, she had built a farcical, half-true life for the two of them.

JEN MAXFIELD
More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories
Thursday, December 1 @ 7 PM at The Wright Library, (1776 Far HIlls Ave, Dayton, Ohio 45419)
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE to Register
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Based on her two-decade career as a local TV news reporter in New York City, Jen Maxfield takes readers on a dramatic ride-along with her in the live truck, from the moment she gets the call to head to breaking news, to arriving at chaotic scenes, to knocking on doors of families who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Maxfield revisits ten memorable stories, describing in heart pounding detail how the events unfolded, through the eyewitness perspectives and her own. From a young man who lost both legs in a ferry crash, to an endurance athlete with stage-four lung cancer; from a fifth grader on a doomed field trip, to an Ivy League undergrad sentenced to decades in prison, Maxfield introduces readers to unforgettable people who will inspire you with their hopefulness, even when confronting life’s greatest heartbreaks. Returning to the families years – even decades– after their stories were featured on the news gives Maxfield an opportunity to ask the burning question she had always pondered: what happened after the live truck pulled away?

DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, TOM DUGAN IS UNABLE TO TRAVEL TO DAYTON FOR HIS SCHEDULED VISIT.
THIS EVENT WILL BE RESCHEDULED – WATCH FOR UPDATES!
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Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor who became internationally famous for relentlessly pursuing and bringing nearly 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice. He is best known for his role in capturing Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution.
This award-winning one-man play, now available in book form, begins on the day of his retirement when Simon Wiesenthal invites one last group of students into his office. With warmth, wit, and surprising humor, the famed “Nazi Hunter” recounts how he tracked down history’s most notorious killers, warning his young friends that although progress has been made since WWII, the human savage still lurks just below this wafer-thin veil of civilization. Author Tom Dugan captures the essence of this extraordinary man in the context of Holocaust history as well as the legacy he left behind.

RONALD BALSON
An Affair of Spies: A Novel
Wednesday, January 18, 2023 @ 7 PM, Livestream at the Woodbourne Library (6060 Far Hills Ave, Centerville, OH 45459)
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE to Register
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While attending an evening course at Columbia in 1941 Nathan Silverman, born in Berlin and who fled after his uncle was arrested on Kristallnacht notices a recruitment poster on a university wall and decides to enlist in the military and help fight the Nazi regime. To his surprise, he is quickly selected for a special assignment; the Allies are racing to develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazis, and a German theoretical physicist is hoping to defect. The physicist was a friend of his father, and Nathan’s mission is to return to Berlin via France and smuggle him out of Europe.
Nathan will be accompanied by Dr. Allison Fisher, a brilliant young scientist who can speak French. As their relationship deepens, they move ever closer to their dangerous goal. Will they be able to escape Europe with the defector and start a new life together, or will they fail their mission and become two more casualties of war?

DAN GRUNFELD
By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy and an Unprecedented American Dream
Sunday, March 5, 2023 @ 7 PM at the Carillon Brewery (1000 Carillon Blvd, Dayton, OH 45409)
Cost: $10
CLICK HERE to Purchase Tickets
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When Lily and Alex entered a packed gymnasium in Queens, New York in 1972, they barely recognized their son. The boy who escaped to America with them, who was bullied as he struggled to learn English and cope with family tragedy, was now a young man who had discovered and secretly honed his basketball talent on the outdoor courts of New York City. That young man was Ernie Grunfeld, who would go on to win an Olympic gold medal and reach previously unimaginable heights as an NBA player and executive. In By the Grace of the Game, Dan Grunfeld, once a basketball standout himself at Stanford University, shares the remarkable story of his family, a delicately interwoven narrative that doesn’t lack in heartbreak yet remains as deeply nourishing as his grandmother’s Hungarian cooking, so lovingly described. The true improbability of the saga lies in the discovery of a game that unknowingly held the power to heal wounds, build bridges, and tie together a fractured Jewish family.
Thank you to our 2022 Donors
PUBLISHER ($1,000 +)
Bernard & Carole Rabinowitz Philanthropic Fund
of the Jewish Foundation of Greater Dayton
PERFORMER ($500 – $999)
Mr. & Mrs. Mark Jones
Michael Goldstein
Mary Rita & Norman Weissman
POET ($250 – $499)
Marni Flagel
Lorraine Fortner
Ann Laderman
Gayle & Irvin Moscowitz
PIANIST ($100 – $249)
Beth Adelman
Jack & Maryann Bernstein
Adam & Tara Feiner
Neil D. Friedman
Felix & Erika Garfunkel
Lynn & David Goldenberg
Arlene Graham
Dr. Franklin & Renee Rubin Handel
Linda & Steve Horenstein
Kim & Candy Kwiatek
Meredith & Jim Levinson
Cheryl & Franklin Lewis
Judy Lipton
Beverly Louis
Linda Novak
Carolyn Rice
Alice & Burt Saidel (In Memory of Carol Nathanson)
Joan & Peter H. Wells
PATRON ($18 – $99)
Connie & Stanley Blum
Freida Blum
Robert & Leslie Buerki
Judy & Alan Chesen
Philip & Louisa Scarpelli Dreety
Esther & DeNeal Feldman
Lynn Foster
Bella Freeman
Paula Gessiness & Jay Holland
Helene Gordon
Meryl Hattenbach
Jana Morse
Edie Pequignot
Cantor Andrea Raizen
Cheri Rosenstein
Judy Schwartzman & Mike Jaffe
Audrey P. Tuck
Caryl & Donald Weckstein
Lawrence Wagenfeld
Diane Rubin Williams & Ralph Williams
Don & Sue Zulanch
Thank you to our Corporate Sponsors












CABS 2021 – Check out last year’s stellar line up!

The History of Stand-Up
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Today’s top stand-up comedians sell out arenas, generate millions of dollars, tour the world, and help shape our social discourse. So, how did this all happen? The History of Stand-Up chronicles the evolution of this American art form – from its
earliest pre-vaudeville practitioners like Artemus Ward and Mark Twain to present-day comedians of HBO and Netflix. Drawing on his acclaimed History of Stand-up podcast and popular university lectures, veteran comedian and adjunct USC professor Wayne Federman guides us on this fascinating journey.

Food Americana
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Food Americana is the inside story of how Americans have formed a national cuisine from a world of flavors—from lox and bagels to sushi, tacos to pizza, and on and on—and how that process continues today. Each chapter concludes with a classic recipe. It’s a riveting ride into every aspect of what we eat and why, filled with eye-opening information, revealing anecdotes, and a healthy serving of humor. It includes conversations with some of the most significant people in food.

Parenting with Sanity & Joy: 101 Simple Strategies
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In this collection of readily actionable tips, parenting mentor Sue Groner distills the best parenting wisdom into one easy-to-read book, providing simple, fun, and effective guidance. Parenting with Sanity and Joy will help parents feel more confident as they navigate one of the most important roles they will ever take on.

Proof of Life: Twenty Days on the Hunt for a Missing Person in the Middle East
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Daniel Levin was in his New York office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over twenty tense days. Levin, a lawyer turned armed-conflict negotiator, chases leads throughout the Middle East, meeting with powerful sheikhs, drug lords, and sex traffickers in his pursuit of the truth.
In Proof of Life, Levin dives deep into the shadows—an underground industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and even people. He offers a fascinating study of how people use leverage to get what they want from one another and of a place where no one does a favor without wanting something in return, whether it’s immediately or years down the road.

The Memory Monster
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Written as a report to the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, our unnamed narrator recounts his own undoing. Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II and guides tours through the sites for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims’ lives.
The job becomes a mission, and then an obsession. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the genocide committed by the Nazis. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers—their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill. The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honor the memory of horror without becoming consumed by it?

The Upstander: How Surviving the Holocaust Sparked Max Glauben’s Mission to Dismantle Hate
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Holocaust survivor Max Glauben is on a mission—to outlast hate, to preserve memory, and to compel the world to embrace tolerance. The Nazis had destroyed the Glauben family’s business, upended their rights, and ultimately decimated their neighborhood. The deluge of questions would only intensify after the Nazis murdered Max’s mother, father, and brother. Max channeled grit, determination, and a fortuitous knack for manufacturing airplane parts to outlast six horrific concentration camps in his quest to survive.
This memoir explores Max’s mischievous childhood and teen years as a go-to ghetto smuggler. He reveals how he ached as he dared to court love and rear children. For decades, he bottled up his trauma. Then he realized: He could transform his pain into purpose. In the seventy-five years since his liberation, Max has ceased to ask himself, “Why me?” Instead, he reframes his focus, eager to partner with you and ask: “What can we do next?”

This Magnificent Dappled Sea
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Daniel Levin was in his New York office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over twenty tense days. Levin, a lawyer turned armed-conflict negotiator, chases leads throughout the Middle East, meeting with powerful sheikhs, drug lords, and sex traffickers in his pursuit of the truth.
In Proof of Life, Levin dives deep into the shadows—an underground industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and even people. He offers a fascinating study of how people use leverage to get what they want from one another and of a place where no one does a favor without wanting something in return, whether it’s immediately or years down the road.

The Instant Pot® Kosher Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Nourish Body and Soul
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traditional Jewish dishes are soups and stews—prepared before Friday night and kept warm throughout Shabbat, when observant Jews aren’t allowed to cook—and that’s the sweet spot of the Instant Pot® as it allows for vastly shorter cooking times without compromising flavor or texture. The Instant Pot® Kosher Cookbook includes timeless Jewish favorites tailored to this modern appliance along with kosher versions of international classics—all expertly and deliciously adapted to the Instant Pot®.

The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World’s Most Notorious Terrorist
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When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity. The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder’s tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steelwalled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists—men who swore they’d never speak to a woman—until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks.
Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped take down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate—and thus change the world.
Thank you to our 2021 Donors
Patrons
Maggie Arment
Stanley & Connie Blum
Frieda Blum
Dena Briskin
Leslie Buerki
Linda Chernick
Judy & Alan Chesen
Amy & David Dolph
Libby & Ken Elbaum
Felix Garfunkel
Helene Gordon
Arlene Graham
Henry Guggenheimer
Clara Hochstein
Karen Jaffe
Paula Gessiness & Jay Holland
Kim & Candy Kwiatek
Ellen Lauber
Amy Margolin
Ruth Meadow
Linda Novak
Cantor Andrea Raizen
Cherie Rosenstein
David Rothchild
Nick & Bobbie Schmall
Felice Shane
Jeffrey & Julie Stoller
Audrey Tuck
Lawrence Wagenfeld
Diane & Ralph Williams
Pianist
James & Margaret Brooks
Adam & Tara Feiner
Art & Joan Greenfield
Robert Goldenberg
Jane & Gary Hochstein
Linda & Steve Horenstein
Joan Isaacson
Meredith & Jim Levinson
Wendy Lipp
Judy Lipton
Beverly Louis
Carolyn Rice
Burt & Alice Saidel
Joni & Ralph Watson
Donald & Caryl Weckstein
Poet
Maryann & Jack Bernstein
Marni Flagel
Lorraine Fortner
Neil Friedman
Gayle & Irvin Moscowitz
David & Jane Novick
Performer
Michael Goldstein
Publisher
Drs. Karen & Steve Arkin
Bernard & Carole Rabinowitz Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Foundation of Greater Dayton
Thank you to our Corporate Sponsors



Thank you to our Sponsors

