Car­ol Kauf­man has been a pil­lar of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil for twen­ty-two years. After writ­ing two books and hav­ing a long career in pub­lish­ing (more on that below!), she joined JBC out of a desire to give to the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. Car­ol pre­ced­ed me as Edi­to­r­i­al Direc­tor and lat­er took on the role of Exec­u­tive Edi­tor, edit­ing JBC’s quar­ter­ly, Jew­ish Book World, before cofound­ing our annu­al lit­er­ary jour­nal, Paper Brigade. 

There isn’t a per­son on the JBC team who hasn’t been for­ti­fied by vis­it­ing Carol’s office, wel­comed by her gra­cious smile and an offer of dark choco­late or a lemon drop, and giv­en excel­lent sug­ges­tions — whether lit­er­a­ture-relat­ed or not. On the occa­sion of her retire­ment, Car­ol took some time to reflect on her career.

Bec­ca Kan­tor: Look­ing back on your many years at JBC, what are some of your favorite mem­o­ries or accomplishments?

Car­ol Kauf­man: So many great expe­ri­ences come to mind. At JBC I had an unpar­al­leled oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with a tal­ent­ed, dynam­ic team and inter­act with some of the most inter­est­ing writ­ers and pub­lish­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the business. 

Meet­ing Etgar Keret at the Jerusalem Inter­na­tion­al Book Fair was one high­light — he signed his lat­est book for my son, who was serv­ing as a lone sol­dier in the IDF at the time, and even added a fun­ny lit­tle doo­dle. Anoth­er unfor­get­table encounter was with the Nobel Prize – win­ning sci­en­tist and author Eric Kan­del, who gave me an impromp­tu his­to­ry les­son on the shift­ing bor­der between Poland and Aus­tria in the 1880s — the region where my grand­par­ents lived before emi­grat­ing to the Unit­ed States. And I’ll nev­er for­get escort­ing the poet, edi­tor, and pub­lish­er Stan­ley Moss at a JBC poet­ry salon, rem­i­nisc­ing with him about mutu­al friends like the edi­tors Jack Macrae and Ted Solotaroff. 

As for accom­plish­ments, cre­at­ing Paper Brigade with you, Bec­ca, was a big one. We dreamed it up, made it hap­pen, and now the ninth vol­ume is out — it might be the best one yet! 

I’ve also been for­tu­nate to par­tic­i­pate in some of JBC’s major mile­stones, which has been a huge source of pride. When Covid-19 shut down New York City, we piv­ot­ed lit­er­al­ly overnight to work­ing remote­ly and meet­ing on Zoom — a tes­ti­mo­ny to the team’s resilience and to Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter’s lead­er­ship. (Who had even heard of Zoom before that?) Anoth­er exam­ple of JBC’s abil­i­ty to respond imme­di­ate­ly was when we launched the Wit­ness­ing series just two days after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023. JBC instinc­tive­ly under­stood the urgency Israeli authors felt to write about what had hap­pened. The way the orga­ni­za­tion has stepped up and become a safe haven for Jew­ish authors and pub­lish­ing pro­fes­sion­als in this era of ram­pant anti­semitism has been deeply inspir­ing. 

BK: Before work­ing at JBC, you had not one but mul­ti­ple careers. Years into our friend­ship, you still sur­prise me with off­hand com­ments like ​“When I wrote a book about rac­quet sports …” or ​“When I worked at Book of the Month Club …” Could you talk about your path to JBC? How did ear­li­er expe­ri­ences shape your approach to edit­ing?

CK: I was lucky to have remark­able men­tors ear­ly on — two bril­liant nov­el­ists I stud­ied with as an under­grad­u­ate: Joseph Heller and Philip Roth. When I took Heller’s class, Catch-22 had just been pub­lished and Heller was sud­den­ly famous; when I stud­ied with Roth, he was at work on Our Gang, his sharp satire of Richard Nixon. 

Lat­er, I had the priv­i­lege of work­ing for won­der­ful edi­tors, includ­ing Ted Solotaroff at Ban­tam Books, Jean Strouse at Pan­theon Books, and Bill Zinss­er at Book of the Month Club. I’ve always been a devot­ed read­er, but from each of them I learned how to read more thought­ful­ly, work close­ly with authors, and find the clear­est, most mean­ing­ful way to say some­thing worth saying.

BK: We cofound­ed Paper Brigade and have edit­ed all nine vol­umes togeth­er. Are there pieces that stand out as espe­cial­ly res­o­nant or sur­pris­ing to you?

CK: Some of the most reward­ing pieces to edit have been the short sto­ries. Col­lab­o­rat­ing with you, Josh Rol­nick (our fic­tion edi­tor), and the authors to refine each sto­ry has been a dream. Turn­ing good pieces into great ones is what edit­ing is all about.

BK: We once talked about what our hypo­thet­i­cal mem­oirs would be titled. You sug­gest­ed Close Read­er, which I still love — it fits both your metic­u­lous edit­ing style and your thought­ful, obser­vant per­son­al­i­ty. Any oth­er ideas? Maybe a sub­ti­tle?

CK: Con­fes­sions of a Life­long Book­worm? That one might be even clos­er to the truth.

BK: Speak­ing of book titles, I know that Her­man Wouk’s Mar­jorie Morn­ingstar was con­nect­ed to your fam­i­ly — anoth­er piece of Car­ol lore! What’s the real sto­ry?

CK: Sim­ply this: Her­man Wouk lived in the same New York apart­ment build­ing as my father’s fam­i­ly and knew them well. He bor­rowed the Eng­lish trans­la­tion of their sur­name — Mor­gen­stern — for his hero­ine, Mar­jorie Morningstar. 

BK: You’ve been a men­tor to every JBC team mem­ber, and I’ve been espe­cial­ly lucky to work so close­ly with you. What advice would you give to edi­tors or aspir­ing editors?

CK: That’s very kind of you to say! Hon­est­ly, I feel that I’ve learned just as much from all of you — espe­cial­ly when it comes to dig­i­tal know-how and keep­ing up with con­tem­po­rary culture. 

If I had to give advice, I’d keep it sim­ple: read wide­ly, reread often, and read aloud. Read­ing aloud helps you devel­op an ear for prose that flows and makes sense — it’s one of the best tools an edi­tor has. 

BK: Now that you’ll (hope­ful­ly!) have a bit more time to read for plea­sure, what books are you look­ing for­ward to read­ing — either on your own or with your grand­chil­dren?

CK: I read to my grand­chil­dren, who are two and four, when­ev­er they’ll sit still long enough. They already know some of their favorite books by heart and love to ​“read” them back to me — it’s won­der­ful to watch their pride and joy in language.

As for my own read­ing, I’ve been espe­cial­ly drawn to non­fic­tion late­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly biog­ra­phy and art his­to­ry. Of course, I try to keep up with new Jew­ish fic­tion, too — includ­ing the ter­rif­ic selec­tions from Nu Reads.