RSS
It’s ‘Hanukkah in the summer’ as New Yorkers raid the Jewish Book Council’s shelves
(New York Jewish Week) — The competition started in the elevator.
On Wednesday night, around 5:40 p.m., a woman lugging an empty suitcase across the ground floor of the nondescript 520 8th Avenue office building in Manhattan yelled, “Hold that door!”
She was hoping to get a prime spot in line at the event happening on the fourth floor — the Jewish Book Council’s annual “Raid the Shelves” event, which, for $25, allows members of the public to take home as many of the nonprofit’s spare books as they can carry.
An awkward silence ensued in the elevator, as the woman eyed a father and daughter who were also carrying suitcases. Early entrance to the event was about to begin: For an extra $30 —$55 in total — attendees could get a 15-minute head start.
The Jewish Book Council, which was founded in 1945, describes itself as “the longest-running organization devoted exclusively to the support and celebration of Jewish literature.” In addition to running the National Jewish Book Awards, the nonprofit organizes writing seminars, publishes a literary journal, runs other events and writes reviews of notable Jewish-themed books. As such, the council receives hundreds of books a year from publishers hoping to earn reviews, nominations for awards or inclusion in a program.
The Raid the Shelves event began in 2009 as a treat for alumni of a literature-themed Birthright Israel program that the JBC had coordinated. Opened to the public in 2011, the event attracts hundreds of bibliophile New Yorkers annually and has grown each year. Last year’s event featured the most books ever because it was the first post-pandemic lockdown edition — so the council had three years of leftovers to give away.
“You see some people and you’re not sure how they’re getting home,” Miri Pomerantz Dauber, a JBC staff member, told the New York Jewish Week, referring to the stacks of books many people try to amass.
Standing in line on the fourth floor on Wednesday, everyone was polite. But at 5:44, a quiet tension simmered; one minute later, when early access opened, dozens of people speed-walked into a large room and began perusing the piles of books organized by genre —everything from fiction to history to memoir to children’s literature.
Though the books all had Jewish themes, not all attendees were Jews. Luke Hughett, for example, a 46-year-old creative director who works in advertising, heard about the event from a friend. “I was surprised at the sort of feverishness of it,” he told the New York Jewish Week.
Hughett said he was also surprised at the selection. He took books on history (“Holocaust-adjacent things”); graphic novels for his daughter, who loves the Holocaust novel “Maus”; and even poetry collections.
Books at the event ranged from fiction to history to memoir to children’s books. (Gabe Friedman)
Standing no taller than 5 feet, Hannah Zaves-Greene, a Jewish history professor at Sarah Lawrence College, was busily filling a bag nearly half her size. She said she will use some of her finds in her classroom — including “The Baron: Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Nineteenth Century,” a biography of a prominent Gilded Age philanthropist.
“The selection is fantastic,” Zaves-Greene said.
This year, around 150 people attended, at times filling the room to capacity. The JBC offers whatever is left after one of these events to building staff and to other companies in the building, JBC Executive Director Naomi Firestone-Teeter said.
“It’s like our little mini-Hanukkah in the summer,” she said.
Firestone-Teeter said that she met some acquaintances via the event, people she sees only once a year. “I know exactly what books they like, I know what genres — I take them around… [and say] ‘This one’s for you! And this one’s for you!’” she said.
Just 20 minutes after the event’s official start time of 6 p.m., the crowd had mostly dispersed, leaving just a few books behind in their wake.
Attendees employed different strategies. Adi Elbaz, 35, who said she especially loves contemporary books in which authors draw from Jewish folklore or ancient themes, balanced well over a dozen books in her arms.
“I’m just kind of grabbing things without investigating,” she said. “Whatever looks good, I’m like, ‘Yes, give it to me!’”
Ken Shept, 76, a novelist and children’s book author, was looking for inspiration in the Jewish philosophy text section, which included titles such as “God Said What??” and “Dear Rabbi.”
“I’m looking for books that will make me a better writer,” Shept said.
He summed up the event as “a kiddish without the food, basically,” referring to the social food spreads offered after Shabbat services.
The JBC’s Pomerantz Dauber agreed, saying, “It’s like TJ Maxx, for books!”
—
The post It’s ‘Hanukkah in the summer’ as New Yorkers raid the Jewish Book Council’s shelves appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land
This 1 V. postage revenue stamp from West Refaim was postmarked in Virikoso in South Giantsland 100 years ago. Problem is—none of these places ever existed. There is a second […]
The post Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will contest arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday.
The office also said that US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had updated Netanyahu “on a series of measures he is promoting in the US Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would cooperate with it.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
“Israel today submitted a notice to the International Criminal Court of its intention to appeal to the court, along with a demand to delay the execution of the arrest warrants,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Court spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told journalists that if requests for an appeal were submitted it would be up to the judges to decide
The court’s rules allow for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would pause or defer an investigation or a prosecution for a year, with the possibility of renewing that annually.
After a warrant is issued the country involved or a person named in an arrest warrant can also issue a challenge to the jurisdiction of the court or the admissibility of the case.
The post Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage
Shomrim officers at the scene of a hate crime in London in which Jewish girls were struck with glass bottles. Photo: Shomrim Stamford Hill/Screenshot
A group of young Jewish girls were the victims of an “abhorrent hate crime” when a man hurled glass bottles at them from a balcony as they were walking through the Stamford Hill section of London on Monday evening.
One of the girls was struck in the head and rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries, according to local law enforcement.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the Woodberry Down Estate in the city’s borough of Hackney following reports of an assault on Monday evening at 7:44 pm local time.
“A group of schoolgirls had been walking through the estate when a bottle was thrown from the upper floor of a building,” the spokesperson said. “A 16-year-old girl was struck on the head and was taken to hospital. Her injuries have since been assessed as non-life changing.”
Police noted they were unable to locate the suspect and an investigation is ongoing before adding, “The incident is being treated as a potential antisemitic hate crime.”
Following the incident, Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and serves as a neighborhood watch group, reported that the girls were en route to a rehearsal for an upcoming event. The community, the group added, was “shocked” by the attack on “innocent young Jewish girls,” calling it an “abhorrent hate crime.”
14-year-old girl rushed to Hospital with head & facial injuries following an attack in #StamfordHill.
Young Jewish girls on their way to a rehearsal were pelted with glass bottles by a male on a balcony at Woodberry Down Estate N4.
This… pic.twitter.com/MzHPHusgyX
— Shomrim (London North & East) (@Shomrim) November 26, 2024
Since then, another Jewish girl, age 14, has reported being pelted with a hard object which caused her to be “knocked unconscious, and left feeling dizzy and with a bump on her head,” according to Shomrim.
Monday’s crime was one among many which have targeted London Jews in recent years, an issue The Algemeiner has reported on extensively.
Last December, an Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauled a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children was berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!”
Months prior, a perpetrator stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting “dirty Jew” before snatching her shopping bag and “spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing.” That incident followed a woman wielding a wooden stick approaching a Jewish woman near the Seven Sisters area and declaring “I am doing it because you are Jew,” while striking her over the head and pouring liquid on her. The next day, the same woman — described by an eyewitness as a “serial racist” — chased a mother and her baby with a wooden stick after spraying liquid on the baby. That same week, three people accosted a Jewish teenager and knocked his hat off his head while yelling “f—king Jew.”
According to an Algemeiner review of Metropolitan Police Service data, 2,383 antisemitic hate crimes occurred in London between October 2023 and October 2024, eclipsing the full-year totals of 550 in 2022 and 845 in 2021. The problem is so serious that city officials created a new bus route to help Jewish residents “feel safe” when they travel.
“Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Jewish Chronicle in a statement about the policy decision earlier this year. “So, this direct bus link between these two significant communities [Stamford Hill in Hackney and Golders Green in Barnet, areas with two of the biggest Jewish communities in London] means you can travel on the 310, not need to change, and be safe and feel safer. I hope that will lead to more Londoners from these communities using public transport safely.”
Khan added that the route “connects communities, connects congregations” and would reassure Jewish Londoners they would be “safe when they travel between these two communities.”
However, it doesn’t solve the problem at hand — an explosion of antisemitism unlike anything seen in the Western world since World War II. Just this week, according to a story by GB News, an unknown group scattered leaflets across the streets of London which threatened that “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered.”
Responding to this latest incident, the director of the Jewish civil rights group StandWithUs UK Isaaz Zarfati told GB News that the comments should be taken “seriously.”
“We are witnessing a troubling trend of red lines being repeatedly crossed,” he said. “This is not just another wave that will pass if we remain passive. We must take those threats and statement seriously because they will one day turn into actions, and decisive steps are needed to combat this alarming phenomenon.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login