Events

Join Jewish Book Council and internationally best-selling author David Grossman in a conversation about love, trauma, and healing. More Than I Love My Life is the story of three generations of women on an unlikely journey to a Croatian island and a secret that needs to be told, written by Booker Prize winner, Sapir Prize winner, and two-time National Jewish Book Award winner David Grossman. He will be joined by Jewish Book Council’s own Marilyn Hassid, in a conversation that will allow the audience a peek inside his inspiration for writing this book and more

This hilarious sequel to Beau Jest brings the Goldmans back for even more mistaken identity, gut-busting hijinks, and light-hearted lessons about love, family and being true to yourself.

COMING OUT’S A DRAG

Joel’s dating a nice, Jewish doctor, and he’s finally ready to introduce his parents to the love of his life. Or is he? Created from the vision of a group of Cherry Creek North residents in early 2010, Cherry Creek Theatre debuted in the Denver theatre scene in 2011 with its first production, A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters. After six successful seasons at the Shaver-Ramsey Gallery in Cherry Creek North, Cherry Creek Theatre moved to a permanent home in the Mizel Arts & Culture Center’s Pluss Theatre at the Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center in 2017. Cherry Creek Theatre is proud to bring quality, thought-provoking, professional theatre to the Denver-metro area.

From Netflix’s GLOW and BEST LEFTOVERS EVER!, welcome rising musical comedian, Jackie Tohn! Jackie Tohn is an actress, comic, writer, host, singer/songwriter and show creator. You can catch her hosting the new Netflix cooking competition series, BEST LEFTOVERS EVER! Streaming Now. She plays ‘Melrose’ on the hit Netflix series GLOW, executive produced by Jenji Kohan.

Jackie co-created the new animated preschool musical series, DO RE & MI, set to air on Amazon in the Spring of 2021. She also co-wrote all 50 of the songs for the show’s massive first season pickup. She and Kristen Bell executive produce the show and voice two of the three main characters. She recurs on Amazon’s top-rated show, THE BOYS and can be seen playing one of her heroes, the iconic ‘Gilda Radner,’ in director David Wain’s, A FUTILE AND STUPID GESTURE, on Netflix.

Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland—some still in their teens—helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. With courage, guile, and nerves of steel, these “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and jars of marmalade, and helped build systems of underground bunkers. They flirted with German soldiers, bribed them with wine, whiskey, and home cooking, used their Aryan looks to seduce them, and shot and killed them. They bombed German train lines and blew up a town’s water supply. They also nursed the sick and taught children.

Yet the exploits of these courageous resistance fighters have remained virtually unknown.

As propulsive and thrilling as Hidden Figures, In the Garden of Beasts, Band of Brothers, and A Train in Winter, The Light of Days at last tells the true story of these incredible women whose courageous yet little-known feats have been eclipsed by time. Judy Batalion—the granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors—takes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train. Joining Renia are other women who served as couriers, armed fighters, intelligence agents, and saboteurs, all who put their lives in mortal danger to carry out their missions. Batalion follows these women through the savage destruction of the ghettos, arrest and internment in Gestapo prisons and concentration camps, and for a lucky few—like Renia, who orchestrated her own audacious escape from a brutal Nazi jail—into the late 20th century and beyond.

Powerful and inspiring, featuring twenty black-and-white photographs, The Light of Days is an unforgettable true tale of war, the fight for freedom, exceptional bravery, female friendship, and survival in the face of staggering odds.

The annual Marcus Lecture is presented by the University of Denver’s Holocaust Awareness Institute, in partnership with the Neustadt JAAMM Festival

An artistic excommunication set on Wall Street in 2008, A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff is a mystical meta-musical about the greatest financial fraud in history. A hybrid of memoir and narrative fantasy, A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF tells the story of Madoff and the system that allowed him to function for decades through the eyes of musician/poet Alicia Jo Rabins, who watches the financial crash from her 9th floor studio in an abandoned office building on Wall Street. Fueled by her growing obsession, real-life interviews transform into music videos, ancient spiritual texts become fevered fantasies of synchronized swimming, and a vivid, vulnerable work of art is born from the unique perspective of an artist watching the global financial collapse up close.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Train to London revisits the dark early days of the German occupation in France in this haunting novel—a love story and a tale of high-stakes danger and incomparable courage—about a young American heiress who helps artists hunted by the Nazis escape from war-torn Europe.

Wealthy, beautiful Naneé was born with a spirit of adventure that transcends her Midwestern roots. For her, learning to fly is freedom. When German tanks roll across the border and into Paris, this woman with an adorable dog and a generous heart joins the resistance. Known as the Postmistress because she delivers information to those in hiding, Naneé uses her charms and skill to house the hunted and deliver them to safety.

Inspired by the real life Chicago heiress Mary Jayne Gold, who worked with American journalist Varian Fry to smuggle artists and intellectuals out of France, Meg Waite Clayton has fashioned a sweeping tale of romance and danger, set in a world aflame with personal and political passion. The Postmistress of Paris is the haunting story of an indomitable woman whose strength, bravery, and love is a beacon of hope in a time of terror.

Note: This author event has been moved from in-person to streaming on Eventive only. 

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war–all set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities at its darkest moment.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta’s heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy’s Fascists with Hitler’s Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear–their families, their homes, and their connection to one another–is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city’s Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war–all set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of reader.

Former Israeli and Palestinian combatants renounce violence and together use peaceful activism to push toward the ever-receding goal of peace. This powerful film follows a group of former Israeli soldiers from elite units and Palestinians who fought against them – including many who served years in prison for terrorist activities. The “Combatants for Peace,” a group of Palestinians and Israelis working together to promote human rights and peace for all, are the only bi-partisan, nonviolent activist group of enemy combatants working together in an ongoing armed conflict in the world today. They are an inspiring modern day example of the importance of using nonviolent solutions – even in the most contentious of situations. A story of the human potential for hope and unity.

From the National Book Award-winning and bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin comes an epic novel rooted in the real-life friendship between two men united by loss.

Colum McCann’s most ambitious work to date, Apeirogon–named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides–is a tour de force concerning friendship, love, loss, and belonging.

Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on, to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend, to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.

Their worlds shift irreparably after ten-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet and thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them and they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace.

McCann crafts Apeirogon out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material. He crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate, and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our time.

A brilliantly modern take on Jewish culinary traditions for a new generation of readers, from a bright new star in the culinary world. Jake will lead a Chanukah-themed culinary event.

When you think of Jewish food, a few classics come to mind: chicken soup with matzo balls, challah, maybe a babka if you’re feeling adventurous. But as food writer and nice Jewish boy Jake Cohen demonstrates in this stunning debut cookbook, Jewish food can be so much more.

In Jew-ish, he reinvents the food of his Ashkenazi heritage and draws inspiration from his husband’s Persian-Iraqi traditions to offer recipes that are modern, fresh, and enticing for a whole new generation of readers. Imagine the components of an everything bagel wrapped into a flaky galette, latkes dyed vibrant yellow with saffron for a Persian spin on the potato pancake, best-ever hybrid desserts like Macaroon Brownies and Pumpkin Spice Babka! Jew-ish features elevated, yet approachable classics along with innovative creations!

Jew-ish is a brilliant collection of delicious recipes, but it’s much more than that. As Jake reconciles ancient traditions with our modern times, his recipes become a celebration of a rich and vibrant history, a love story of blending cultures, and an invitation to gather around the table and create new memories with family, friends, and loved ones.

The incredible story of a Jewish philanthropist who helped to build more than 5,000 schools to help African-Americans in the South.

Inspired by the Jewish ideals of tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (repairing the world), the social justice teachings of his rabbi Emil Hirsch, and a deep concern over racial inequality in America, Julius Rosenwald used the wealth he built as part-owner of Sears and Roebuck to become one of America’s most effective philanthropists. By his death in 1932, Rosenwald had funded the building of 5,400 schools across the segregated American South, providing 660,000 black children with access to education. Recipients of his seminal Rosenwald Fund for African American Artists included Gordon Parks Jr., Augusta Savage, Dr. Charles Drew, Katherine Dunham, Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes. 

Black, Jewish, and Queer: Navigating Judaism with Multiple Identities and Building Bridges.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson sees her multiple identities as an asset and uses her identities as a bridge builder. Her 21st century rabbinate takes her from nursing homes, to cafes, to the world of social media where she uses the aspects of her identity to connect with others.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson received ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in June 2018. She was born in St. Louis, Mo. and grew up in a military family. She graduated from Saint Leo University magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Sociology from Clark Atlanta University. Rabbi Sandra has served in the United States Army, as a Military Police person with a specialty in Military Police Investigations, specializing in cases involving child abuse and domestic violence.

Upon leaving the military she started a personal training business and later worked as an Adjunct Instructor of Sociology at local community colleges. She has also served as the Investigative Researcher for the Anti-Defamation League’s Southeast Region, becoming the go-to person when Law Enforcement in the South needed information on hate groups. Rabbi Sandra uses her rabbinic training to bring Judaism to where people already are in their lives. As a rabbinical student Rabbi Sandra received a prestigious grant to lead shabbat services for unaffiliated Jews in a vegan cafe, she also received a grant to launch her podcast Minutes of Torah.

Rabbi Sandra’s vision as a Rabbi is to help build a more inclusive Jewish community where all who want to come are welcomed, diversity is embraced and we can come together to learn and to pray. This summer Rabbi Sandra starts the next chapter of her journey as an Associate Chaplain at Elon University, in Elon North Carolina.

Over the course of one summer that begins with a shocking tragedy, three generations of the Adler family grapple with heartbreak, romance, and the weight of family secrets.

Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to “America’s Playground” and move into the small apartment above their bakery. This is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence. Now Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy. After Joseph insists they take in a mysterious young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams.

When tragedy strikes, Esther makes the shocking decision to hide the truth—at least until Fannie’s baby is born—and pulls the family into an elaborate web of secret-keeping and lies, bringing long-buried tensions to the surface that reveal how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal after tragedy.

27 Essential Principles of Story: Master the Secrets of Great Storytelling, from Shakespeare to South ParkRubin will lead a fast-paced, fun workshop for writers of all levels—if you’re stuck with writer’s block or have a story you’ve wanted to pen, bring a laptop or a notebook and dive right in!

In 27 lessons, drawn from 27 critical moments at the heart of 27 diverse narratives—from plays, novels, movies, television, and even songs and video games—Daniel Joshua Rubin unlocks the secrets of what makes a story work and then teaches us how to understand and use each principle in our own storytelling.

Rubin, an incisive and no BS teacher, writing consultant, and founder of the Story 27 Studio, expands our understanding of narrative by drilling into examples ranging from Hamlet to The Godfather, Parts I and II, from Harry Potter to an episode of South Park, and unearthing exactly what makes each scene tick. The result is a collection of priceless advice: Escalate Risk , with an example from Pulp Fiction. Write Characters to the Top of Their Intelligence , from the Eminem song “Stan.” Explore All Endings , from HBO’s The Night Of. Attack Your Theme , from The Brothers Karamazov. Peel the Onion , from Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. Clash Expectation with Reality , from Breaking Bad. After each principle comes a lesson in how to do it, plus a Mini Final Exam and Related Principles from other sources.

Rubin’s writing is the writing we all aspire to: insightful, encouraging, filled with attitude; the examples are relatable, contemporary, and fresh. For writers, storytellers, filmmakers, video game designers, podcasters, writing teachers, and anyone interested in how story works, it’s a guide that turns the traditional writing manual on its head, drawing from a world of diverse voices and sources and media. In other words, from where contemporary storytellers find their inspiration.

EVENT POSTPONED TO JANUARY 16, 2022

From the author of the #1 bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky comes a new historical novel inspired by one family’s incredible story of daring, survival, and triumph.

In late March 1944, as Stalin’s forces push into Ukraine, young Emil and Adeline Martel must make a terrible decision: Do they wait for the Soviet bear’s intrusion and risk being sent to Siberia? Or do they reluctantly follow the wolves—murderous Nazi officers who have pledged to protect “pure-blood” Germans?

The Martels are one of many families of German heritage whose ancestors have farmed in Ukraine for more than a century. But after already living under Stalin’s horrifying regime, Emil and Adeline decide they must run in retreat from their land with the wolves they despise to escape the Soviets and go in search of freedom.

Caught between two warring forces and overcoming horrific trials to pursue their hope of immigrating to the West, the Martels’ story is a brutal, complex, and ultimately triumphant tale that illuminates the extraordinary power of love, faith, and one family’s incredible will to survive and see their dreams realized.