Jew­ish Book Month traces its ori­gins to Fan­ny Gold­stein’s 1920s cre­ation of Jew­ish Book Week. In 1925, Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try adopt­ed the week-long cel­e­bra­tion, tim­ing the events to coin­cide with Shavuot. In 1940, the event was shift­ed to the month before Hanukkah, when it is still observed today. 

Excite­ment and enthu­si­asm built for the numer­ous activ­i­ties planned across the coun­try, and in 1943 Jew­ish Book Week was extend­ed to Jew­ish Book Month. One year lat­er, Fan­ny Gold­stein’s Nation­al Com­mit­tee for Jew­ish Book Week was trans­formed into the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. Each year, a unique poster was cre­at­ed in hon­or of the month-long joy­ful cel­e­bra­tion of Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture. See below for select past JBM posters.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the JBC Net­work grew out of this nation­al desire to bring authors and lit­er­a­ture to wide­spread com­mu­ni­ties. Today, the JBC Net­work has rough­ly 120 mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions across North Amer­i­ca and pro­vides over 250 authors with a plat­form for shar­ing their books each year. JBC Net­work arranges over 1,300 pro­grams a year, both vir­tu­al­ly and in-per­­son, for our mem­ber sites, with wide-rang­ing and engag­ing programming. 

His­tor­i­cal­ly, Jew­ish Book Month has been cel­e­brat­ed with rich and nuanced activ­i­ties and events. See below for a peek at what’s been done! Write us a note at info@​jewishbooks.​org — we’d love to hear and see what your com­mu­ni­ty has done to cel­e­brate Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture through­out the years!
 

Ways to Celebrate:

• Reg­is­ter to become a Jew­ish Book Month 100 Com­mu­ni­ty Partner
• Attend the annu­al Jew­ish Writ­ers’ Con­fer­ence which falls dur­ing dur­ing JBM.
• Sub­scribe to JBC’s annu­al lit­er­ary jour­nal, Paper Brigade, which is pub­lished dur­ing Jew­ish Book Month.
• Read a Jew­ish book.
• Buy a book by a Jew­ish author.
• Orga­nize a com­mu­ni­ty read.
• Join or start a book club.
• Read a Jew­ish book to chil­dren in your home or community.
• Cre­ate a bul­letin board ded­i­cat­ed to Jew­ish Book Month in a pub­lic com­mu­ni­ty space.
• Invite an author to speak in your community.
• Attend an author event at a local syn­a­gogue, JCC or Jew­ish Federation.
• Dis­play a table of Jew­ish books in your library, syn­a­gogue, JCC.
• Sign up to get week­ly book reviews and news from Jew­ish Book Council.
• Ask your local library to stock Jew­ish books that you love.
• Ask your local book store to stock Jew­ish books that you love.
• Rec­om­mend a book to friends, your book club or your social media network.
• Find a new book to love on Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s website.
• Orga­nize a school read-a-thon.
• Invite your local school to join one of JBC’s school author events.
• Vis­it the Yid­dish Book Cen­ter online or in Amherst, MA to explore thou­sands of works by Yid­dish writers.
• Have a deli­cious meal and read at book at Lehrhaus in Somerville, MA.
• Past JBM posters can be pur­chased on our web­site here.
• If you will be in Jerusalem, vis­it the beau­ti­ful new Nation­al Library of Israel.
• View the 30 Days 30 Authors series from past years which fea­tured an author video for each day of JBM, which you can find on our web­site!
• Lis­ten to a pod­cast, like the newest one that’s all about Jew­ish books, The Five Books, or the Jew­ish kidlit pod­cast The Book of Life.