Happy (100th) Jewish Book Month!

Today, we have a special entry, written by our current Board member and former Board Chair, Tali Rosenblatt Cohen, in honor of the one hundredth Jewish Book Month. This article was published in eJP (eJewishPhilanthropy) and can be accessed here.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of Jewish book month, a project of the Jewish Book Council, and I’ve been reflecting on what compels us to read (and write) Jewish literature. 

When I started “The Five Books” podcast in December 2024, I thought of it as a way to promote Jewish books at a time when Jewish authors were frequently overlooked, or worse. But over time, I’ve realized it’s really a project about the diversity of Jewish experience. Each book becomes a meeting place: between author and reader, past and present, self and community. Every conversation is a reminder of how reading Jewishly keeps us connected — to the past, to each other and to the larger Jewish story. 

It feels fitting to celebrate both milestones together: a century of Jewish reading and one year of “The Five Books.” Here are five things I’ve learned about the role Jewish books play in our lives.

1.) Jewish books connect us to the past of our imagination

On “The Five Books,” I ask guests to talk about a Jewish book read in childhood that impacted their Jewish identity and am struck by the books which come up again and again. All-of-a-Kind Family and the Chaim Potok books My Name is Asher Lev or The Chosen loom large as a powerful first glimpse of Jewish life in literature. These books are set in the familiar landscape of our communal imagination: the Lower East Side tenements of the turn of the 20th century, the Brooklyn living room of the 1950s. Depicted on the page are the rhythms of Shabbat, the tensions between faith and modernity, the small details of family and community. And they speak to something larger: our collective desire to bring the past forward, to make our parents’ and grandparents’ stories a living part of our own.

Holocaust memoirs like Night, by Elie Wiesel, The Diary of Anne Frank, or Maus, by Art Spiegelman have also been Jewish touchstones. This should not be surprising, and yet it reminds me that 80 years on we are still scratching at the surface of attempts to reach through the unimaginable rupture of the Holocaust. The extent to which Holocaust books are a formative part of creating Jewish identity today is unavoidable.

For Jewish funders and cultural leaders, supporting projects that digitize archives, reissue out-of-print classics or create intergenerational reading initiatives ensures that the stories that shaped earlier generations remain alive for the next. 

2.) Jewish books expand what we know of our history

One of the most exciting parts of hosting this podcast has been seeing how contemporary authors are broadening the map of Jewish storytelling. In Kantika, Elizabeth Graver resurrects the Sephardi Diaspora through her grandmother’s migrations from Constantinople to Havana to New York. Sharon Kurtzman fictionalizes and expounds on her mother’s post-World War II experience in Vienna, a period of history often overlooked, in The Baker of Vienna. Rachel Cockerell’s Melting Point resurfaces primary sources offering a perspective on the choices facing Russian Jewry in the early 20th century and the origins of Zionism that is mostly forgotten.

Together, these writers reveal how much we have to gain when we know our history. Philanthropy can play a vital role in sustaining this widening of the Jewish lens. Organizations like Jewish Book Council, which offers the National Jewish Book Awards (including a Sephardic Culture category) and marketing grants for Jewish-theme books, are already creating infrastructure to support this work. 

3.) Jewish books create belonging and widen our sense of who we are today

I have a new appreciation for the ways in which literature helps make belonging possible. Seeing ourselves in the story is a conduit for connection. Esther Levy Chehebar’s Sisters of Fortune immerses readers in the world of the contemporary Syrian Jewish community, a world rarely represented in fiction. Jean Meltzer writes romantic comedies in which Jewish spirituality, romantic tropes and contemporary challenges coexist easily – proof that Jewish stories can be joyful and irreverent, not just solemn or historical. Jessica Elisheva Emerson, in Olive Days, writes about women caught between piety and self-expression, expanding what a religious Jewish interior life can look like on the page. Each of these writers expands the boundaries of Jewish literature, allowing Jews of all backgrounds and experiences to find themselves on the page. 

For communal funders, this is a powerful reminder that representation fosters connection. Supporting emerging Jewish writers, small presses and literary programs that reflect the full diversity of Jewish experience strengthens the fabric of belonging across the global Jewish community. For instance, Maimonides Fund’s Jewish Writers’ Initiative supports authors and creators telling under-represented Jewish stories, from Sephardi and Mizrahi narratives to post-Soviet and Diasporic experiences through fellowships like the Digital Storytellers Lab and Screenwriters Lab.

4.) Jewish books allow us to be in conversation with the past

I’ve come to think of Jewish reading as a form of dialogue — not just between author and reader, but among authors and across time. Sam Sussman, in Boy From the North Country, names his fictional mother after Amos Oz’s discarded original name, picking up the mantle of Jewish sons examining the pain of their mothers. Benjamin Resnick’s Next Stop draws on the 17th-century Sabbatean controversy, showing how theological debates still shape modern questions of faith and failure. When Yael van der Wouden read Nathan Englander, she suddenly recognized her own internaJewish learning institutions, community centers and synagogues can build on this dialogic tradition. Incorporating contemporary literature into adult education or cross-denominational study circles offers new ways for Jews to read, question and engage across differences. The Natan Notable Books project does this work in catalyzing conversation around contemporary Jewish issues. JBC’s new subscription service Nu Reads exemplifies how everyday readers and institutions can support Jewish writers and small presses through accessible platforms.

5.) Jewish books help us imagine a different future

The writers and thinkers I’ve spoken with are using Jewish texts not only to understand who we’ve been, but to envision who we might yet become. Sarah Hurwitz’s As a Jew invites readers to rediscover Jewish texts as a living ethical tradition on our own terms, and to be conscious of the ways Christian antisemitism has infiltrated our self perception. Rabbi Sharon Brous, in The Amen Effect, calls for a Judaism that mends the fractures of modern life through community and presence. Ilana Kurshan’s Children of the Book and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s Heart of a Stranger both remind me that the act of reading itself can be sacred and that to interpret is to belong. These books make space for possibility: a Judaism that is intentional, spiritually nourishing and inclusive. Investing in programs that unite Jewish text study, creative writing and communal exploration nurtures the next generation of thinkers and storytellers. Awards like the Sami Rohr Prize not only celebrate individual authors but build a cohort of writers whose work invites broader participation in Jewish cultural life. These initiatives help ensure that Jewish creativity remains a living, evolving conversation — one that continues to shape the future of Jewish life.uthors but build a cohort of writers whose work invites broader participation in Jewish cultural life. These initiatives help ensure that Jewish creativity remains a living, evolving conversation — one that continues to shape the future of Jewish life.

Each new Jewish story, whether born in Istanbul, Tel Aviv or Brooklyn, adds another verse to the ongoing midrash of who we are. A century after the first Jewish Book Month asked us to keep reading, it is clear that as long as there are readers and writers willing to ask what it means to be Jewish in this moment, the conversation will go on. And that, in the end, may be the most enduring story of all.