>> the morning, and welcome to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host. technology in the world is changing all sorts of ways in which we live fundamentally. it changes how we agreed. in honor of jewish book month, we are honored to have in our conversation, howard friedman, the executive director of the jewish community library. welcome, howard. >> why don't you jump in and talked with new at the community library? >> we always have things happening at the library. but i'm excited about is the beginning of our book program for the year.

it's a lot like the number of communities doing this where they encourage people to read a single book over the course of a particular time, and what we do is choose a jewish oriented book and encourage people to read it and discuss it. our selection this year is actually the periodic table. it was an italian writer born in 1919. he grew up in the fascist area -- era. he wrote a number of books on his experience, but this is him like any of those that he wrote. >> and so what is one day one book. >> the idea is we want people to be not only reading books but discussing them, so the idea is that we encourage people to pick up this book and either get together with friends or if they are part of an institution like a synagogue or community center, to get together and talk about this book.

i'm convinced after all these years as a librarian that we get such a different experience out of discussing about. >> nbc over time that independent bookstores are growing and use of technology for reading in terms of the pleasure of reading is kind of plateauing outcome it seems. >> i think it's hard to say. we're in a period of such radical change, and it changes year-to-year. i think it's really difficult to be overly general. i do think there's a lot of sort of stepping back a bit. what's happened is that we've embraced a lot of the technology very rapidly, very enthusiastically without assessing some of the long-term impacts and without also assessing some of the research. for instance, i have a daughter in middle school, and she is assigned books to read on her computer.

i've seen her experience is not nearly as pleasurable as it would be reading a physical book. her learning is also different. i think what we had to do is make judicious decisions about how we encourage reading and also what makes sense for us. for me there's not a one size fits all. i love physical books but i also think there is a lot of great advantages for the readers as well. >> what are the other services that the jewish community library offers? >> we are a full-service library but the caveat is that we really deal only with jewish related topics, but that said it's really the entire range of the jewish experience from religion, culture, history, music, art. give every possible perspective from left to right, from atheist to orthodox. the idea is we want to be a true community library that serves and reflects the community we live in. >> every culture struggles with how

it defines itself and what is its own culture, so it's a big question, but how do you define a jewish book? >> for me it's very broad. it's that it has a jewish dimension to it, meaning that it somehow reflects on or in forms or tell us something about the jewish experience that does not necessarily have to be religiously oriented for some people. it's an accidental fact of life that they were born jewish, and yet in the case of this, it determined very much the course of his life as he was imprisoned because he was jewish. i think that what we learn from folks is it likely that, the breath of the experience, the death of the experience when they see it in the big picture is actually what we come to appreciate the jewish experience that much more so because of how broad it is. >> and so for you essentially,

it's a book club on behalf of the jewish community library. how does someone then access that service? >> they would contact us, and we actually have copies we can distribute free of charge but we also have a lot of events that are related to it. for instance, because the book deals with the interface of chemistry and the rest of life, we have some events coming up dealing with science and judaism, or we have things dealing with our italian drewry. >> fantastic. we'll take a quick break and join us in just a moment when we return. ,,,,,,,,

welcome back. in the middle of a wonderful conversation in honor of jewish book month with howard friedman, the executive director of the jewish community library. welcome back. >> thank you. >> what trends do see in what we think of as jewish books? >> i think there are always new developments. one thing that's been sort of gratifying in the last few years is there was a famous essay a number of years ago that the literary critic said, basically, the american jewish literature would become less interesting the more we became from immigrant. whether or not that's true, what we've seen is the most exciting literature has been literature by young writers born in the former

soviet union who may be came in when they were young and are writing in english reflecting on their experience as american jewish immigrants sort of caught between or torn between these two worlds in terms of negotiating their own identity. some of the books are set in russia, some in america, some in both, and that has been great literature. >> what are some of their themes? >> for instance, boris fishman wrote the book, the replacement life in which we have a young man who grew up largely, born in russia, grew up in brighton beach and is trying to get out of there to divorce himself from every russian world. he moves to manhattan and he is to sort of sucked back into that world through a complicated plot around applying for holocaust restitution benefits but it's an example of the

sort of inner being torn and being pulled to succeed in america which has its roles and then ultimately being formed by the russian experience. >> you've been a librarian so many years. what do you make of this theme in the jewish community when we talk about writing and reflecting on our experience for the reader of the push and pull between assimilation, becoming an american, retaining one's own culture and one owns identity get living in the american world. >> well, i think that's the essential american dance for. when we have the opportunity to assimilate, but the difference order challenge than in other places where have lived where that opportunity was largely closed off and there really wasn't the same kind of being torn apart. one of the interesting things we are seeing another trend in jewish literature is the, for lack of other work, the excess acidic

memoir. we have a lot of books coming out by people love left the community and talking about that experience. in some cases come it's angry experience. in some case they felt simply that they had to leave and they still have positive feelings. what we see is a very insular community, a community that has done its best to save off that assimilation, but still you can't completely close yourself off from the greater society. >> and the category of story is mostly in the form of personal essay and the more. >> it's both men and women, but especially women. >> interesting. any other trends that you are seeing? >> one really great thing has been culinary history. we've seen a lot of books, where is books about food use always be cookbooks. recent years we had a lot more books on the history of jewish food and what it tells us. this past month there was a

book that came out called pastrami on rye, but history of jewish delicatessen. it's really neat. something we think about is food and what the author is telling us is that it actually is telling the whole narrative about american assimilation and how see themselves really in relation to society in terms of relationship to religion and how you can read all of this through what we are eating. >> wonderful. we'll have a quick break and come back as we continue this conversation in honor of jewish book month. ,,

welcome back to mosaic.

i'm rabbi eric weiss. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation. i'd like to introduce you joining our conversation is summer brenner who is an author and his most recent work is in an anthology called jewish bar. welcome. >> thank you so much. >> what is the jewish war? >> i think it's important to start with the definition, which many people disagree about. so that's very jewish. you'll get a lot of different answers about what this is, but i'd like to offer my definition. it's a sub genre of crime writing, but i find it is something that is harsh, violent, often a deep social critique, somewhat a fault if. i feel like the best books that

i've read heavily kind of punched me. you know, i've had visceral feelings from reading them. in fact, it is a genre as a film more, which people are quite familiar with because there were many great jewish directors and all different phases of moviemaking that in fleeing europe during and this act -- before the second world war came to hollywood and are credited with creating what we call these films, but they came from a jewish sensibility and many of them, not all, came from the place of persecution. there is a story in the anthology where the writer comments that

it's a very popular term. you might say hip term and that a lot of in publicizing books, they want to brand it that people want to be identified with the term once it comes to publishing, it's much, much harder. >> so you have a piece. tell us a little bit about your particular piece. >> well, my story is called double for a which. it comes from an old southern expression. you traded for a witch, which is not a bargain on either end, so my protagonist, leon greenberg, is in financial straits. he has committed crimes, and he gets an offer from the fbi that he can die and go underground into a clandestine operation in

mississippi undercover to try to identify some of the class that are financing the clan and not only their violent campaign against african-americans during this time. but also there violent insomuch as him. >> i suppose every author gets this variation. to what degree is it fiction and to what degree is it based in current events or historic reality? >> my story takes place in the 1960s. it is fueled by the fact that i actually attended the temple in atlanta, georgia where i grew up in the temple was bombed. it was bombed particularly because of the rabbi, a very vocal and

public affiliation with dr. king. that would've been i think the primary motivation. there has been a book called the temple bombing that melissa fay greene has written that is a nonfiction book about that time, but as a child experiencing that, it was an experience, not my only experience but by the most extreme experience of domestic terror. >> howard, you talked earlier about trends in jewish books. we have this. is this kind of literature new within the context of the community? >> no, it's not what we're seeing more of it. there's more jewish detective fiction. there's actually a large sub saundra -- sub genre. there is the race of

compulsion, the fictional take from that. one of the things that is interesting is the book written in the 50s or 60s, but there's always been a great discomfort among was violent. we all are uncomfortable with violence, but when it happens within the community. some of the novels are sort of showing the underbelly, the parts we don't like to acknowledge that happen among, so i think that is something explored. >> interesting. we'll take a quick break and return in just a moment here.

welcome back to mosaic.

we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation with summer brenner and the executive director of the jewish committee library here in san francisco. welcome back. every anthology has a rationale behind it, so can you talk a little bit about what you understand to be the essentially the framing? >> i spoke about the definition itself but why jewish? i think howard brought in the good to mention about how more and more jewish writers are writing about the underbelly where the crime, but in the introduction, the editor has done an extremely air date explanation that goes back to many references of the bible where crimes are committed were the

heroes that are lionized in biblical literature are actually flawed and imperfect beings struggling with their own demons . the introduction is very, very important in terms of setting the tone of the book, and then what follows are actually 30 plus authors writing in very different voices about very different subjects. you get a wide range of jewish perspective on what a crime story is. >> and is the genre by definition intended to you with the a visceral reaction from a breeder? is that part of this requirement? >> i think that was something that i was personally defining my own response to some things that are bred and also some of the stories that are in this anthology, but not all of them. as i said, there is many

definitions that people will tell you things that would either complement or even maybe contradict some of the things i've said. >> i have kind of a big question for both of you. jewish life is filled with relationship to text, a kind of love affair with the word. is that context every culture has its own hesitancy about revealing, perhaps the much of the broader or even to itself whatever its underbelly might be. what do you think is going on for us in the jewish community and perhaps in america that we are seeing some literature that takes, in some ways, that risk to both revealed to the world and to ourselves a bit of this underbelly. >> for me i think that there is this expression to be ashamed

in front of john -- in front of non-jews. there's an insecurity feeling we have to look good in front of others and we don't want to show those -- you know, airing dirty laundry. the fact that there's more dirty laundry probably is indication of greater feeling of security. >> perhaps this literature signifies the kind of security or maturity and in some ways on the behalf of the community itself to say we are like everybody else and this is part of what makes us human as well. >> exposing ourselves. >> so we have just a little more time left. let's talk a little bit a genre view and talked about, which is children's literature. i'm wondering from your perspective as an author, what about children's literature in the jewish world and howard from the perspective the

library this wreck. >> for a decade i've been writing young adult books. young, young adult books. early teen, middle school. they are all plays bass. the one is i be homeless in san francisco. that's about a 12-year-old girl and her father who are homeless. so it addresses the city is a character in a way that they move around and campout. she has prevented most days from going to school, so it addresses homelessness and has been used in classrooms to introduce the conversation, to open the conversation about homelessness in classrooms where, again, kids are embarrassed to talk about it. they are ashamed or afraid, been a

catalyst for discussion. but the other two books, one about richmond and what about oakland, or even more specifically about place because they time travel back to the history of place, and then try to create bridges among very diverse cultures. so while the protagonist is an african-american girl and a latino boy, there are characters that enter from all periods of history but all in contemporary life, the diverse world we live in. >> we are about to dance to live up to put up, in the conversation. do you have one book you would recommend folks try? >> since i talked about the russian immigrant authors, i would say a bear, backpack, and ed secrets of vodka. >> and, summer?

>> i would recommend this book. it's a wonderful christmas or hanukkah present. >> please enjoy the rest of your day and get a book and read and talk about it. thank you for being with us here on mosaic. come on in pop pop.

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bit of everything today.....theatre, comedy a holiday light show that will amaze you. but, we begin on coffee beat! americans are crazy about their coffee spending 40 billion bucks a year on their ja i'm your host, frank malakhov. good to have you onboard. a little bit of everything today. theater, comedy, light show to amaze, but we begin here. americans are crazy about their coffee spending $40 billion this year. our first guest is the master inventor that has perfected the simple cup. it's a singleserve brewer that uses a newfangled spin brew system that unleashes the true flavor of the entire being. let's find out from him. it looks like a character, but inside it's not. >> compl