From orga­niz­ing Jew­ish Book Month in our ear­li­est days, to devel­op­ing and lead­ing our wide-rang­ing pro­grams today, Jew­ish Book Coun­cil has worked to ensure that Jew­ish sto­ries are read, cel­e­brat­ed, and passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. Each year, JBC sends hun­dreds of authors to com­mu­ni­ties across North Amer­i­ca, sup­ports emerg­ing writ­ers, admin­is­ters the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards, and pub­lish­es Paper Brigade. Through these and oth­er efforts, we strength­en Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, fos­ter dia­logue, and high­light the breadth of the Jew­ish experience.

As we enter the cen­ten­ni­al of Jew­ish Book Month, this work feels more urgent than ever. Jew­ish writ­ers con­tin­ue to face chal­lenges in the pub­lish­ing indus­try, and Jew­ish sto­ries need cham­pi­ons. JBC exists to be that cham­pi­on and empow­er oth­ers across our com­mu­ni­ty. By nur­tur­ing the careers of Jew­ish authors and cre­at­ing spaces for mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions around their books, we help safe­guard the pres­ence of Jew­ish voic­es in the broad­er cul­tur­al landscape.

In this issue, you’ll learn about JBC’s past, and also its future. We just launched yet anoth­er ini­tia­tive: Nu Reads, a bi-month­ly book sub­scrip­tion series that includes signed books, a print­ed com­pan­ion with a per­son­al let­ter from the author, inter­views, and dis­cus­sion prompts, spe­cial extras, and invi­ta­tions to exclu­sive events. By curat­ing Jew­ish books and deliv­er­ing them direct­ly to read­ers, and by offer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to gath­er around them, we are invest­ing not only in indi­vid­ual works but in the ecosys­tem that sus­tains Jew­ish literature.

As I reflect on Jew­ish Book Council’s his­to­ry, I am inspired by the resilience and cre­ativ­i­ty of Jew­ish writ­ers past and present. Look­ing ahead, I am proud that JBC will con­tin­ue to stand beside them — and along­side read­ers like you — as we write the next chap­ter together.

One hun­dred years ago, the head librar­i­an of the Boston Pub­lic Library’s West End Branch — a young Russ­ian immi­grant named Fan­ny Gold­stein — found­ed Jew­ish Book Week. In time, Jew­ish Book Week became Jew­ish Book Month, orga­nized by Jew­ish Book Council.

This issue of Paper Brigade pays trib­ute to the woman behind JBC. An excerpt from Richard Michelson’s new children’s book, Fanny’s Big Idea, depicts the events lead­ing up to Goldstein’s first exhib­it of Jew­ish books. Inter­views high­light con­tem­po­rary fig­ures — Aaron Lan­sky, founder of the Yid­dish Book Cen­ter; and Raquel Uke­les, head librar­i­an of the Nation­al Library of Israel — who fol­low in Goldstein’s foot­steps by pre­serv­ing Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture for oth­ers. Mod­ern-day Jew­ish immi­grant sto­ries are told in essays by Zee­va Bukai and Esther Chehe­bar, and in ​“My Jour­ney from Ethiopia to Harlem,” an excerpt from a gor­geous cook­book by Bee­jhy Barhany. This year’s lit­er­ary map shows Jew­ish libraries around the world. 

Gold­stein was a life­long activist, and here we high­light the caus­es she cham­pi­oned. As the Nazis rose to pow­er, Gold­stein wrote about the dan­gers of anti­semitism. In ​“Com­men­tary on Fan­ny Goldstein’s ​‘Autos-da-fe for the Jew and His Book,’” his­to­ri­an Pamela S. Nadell exam­ines the dis­tress­ing par­al­lels between Goldstein’s time and today. Nan­cy Churnin and Alli­son Epstein dis­cuss how they counter anti­se­mit­ic stereo­types through lit­er­a­ture in ​“Rewrit­ing Fagin.”

In addi­tion to Jew­ish Book Week, Gold­stein arranged events to cel­e­brate the lit­er­a­ture of oth­er minor­i­ty groups. Her belief in inter­faith col­lab­o­ra­tion is echoed in Kyra Lisse’s poem ​“A Bless­ing,” and in two true sto­ries of Jew­ish Amer­i­cans who helped Japan­ese Amer­i­cans impris­oned in US con­cen­tra­tion camps. Goldstein’s work with pris­on­ers was ground­ed in her belief in redemp­tion and in for­give­ness — a con­cept explored in Tova Mirvis’s essay ​“Foren­sics, Fic­tion, and For­give­ness: Craft­ing a Mys­tery Novel.”

We see this issue of Paper Brigade– — like the table of Jew­ish books Fan­ny Gold­stein lov­ing­ly dis­played in her library’s lob­by a cen­tu­ry ago — as a small rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the mil­lions of Jew­ish sto­ries in the world. I hope it enter­tains and inspires you.