By Elana Rivel, Associate Director

This Sunday marks the official Kick-Off of our eighth year of One Book, One Jewish Community (OBOJC) – a community-wide Jewish literacy initiative designed to connect institutions and their members to quality, meaningful Jewish literature through conversations and programs based on themes and concepts presented in the featured selection. OBOJC has taken thousands of readers in our community from basements and libraries of Yiddish book collectors, to Israel, to England post-Holocaust, to the Civil War, to the mountains of Iraq and Aramaic and this year, with Henna House, to Yemen. Our featured stories have allowed us to delve deep into different areas of our tradition and history enriching our collective experiences with literature.

Without fail, each of our author’s has recognized the impact that OBOJC has had on the recognition their books receive. We have hosted brand new authors as well as seasoned authors and each one shared their appreciation to our community. For the first time, we are able to highlight the work of a local author, Nomi Eve. One of the many benefits of having a local author is her availability to work with our partners, speaking at book clubs and institutional programs. We believe that the selection of Henna House this year allows us to spread Nomi’s work even deeper into our community!

OBOJC does not happen without the hard work of our amazing Implementation Team, comprised of communal volunteers. These individuals are committed to the mission of OBOJC and to ensuring its success. Bev Cohen, from Tiferet Bet Israel and Kareen Hartwig, from Temple Brith Achim chair this initiative. They have both been involved with OBOJC for seven years – that’s a lot of books to review, registrations to collect, partner programs to consult for, food trays to order, people to welcome and logistics to manage. We could not offer this program without them. We want to recognize the rest of the Implementation Team:

Patricia Bassman, Congregation Beth Or
Mindy Blechman, Gratz College
Bruce Bogdanoff, Congregation Ohev Shalom
Sally Brown, Odell Diamond Library of Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim
Mitchell Davis, Congregation Beth Or
Lenore Forsted, Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El
Helene Geiger, Tiferet Bet Israel
Rabbi Bonnie Goldberg, Community Representative
Martha Klein, Community Representative
Richard Lowe, Beth Tikvah B’nai Jeshurun
Steve Pollack, Tiferet Bet Israel
Rabbi Eric Rosin, Kesher Israel Congregation
Beverly C. Rosen, Community Representative
Ellen Tilman, Meyers Library at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel

Please join us this Sunday, November 16 at 3:00pm at Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El for the Kick-Off and Book Signing for this year’s featured selection, Henna House.

Kareen Hartwig and Bev Cohen, OBOJC Co-Chairs with author, Michael Lavigne

Kareen Hartwig and Bev Cohen, OBOJC Co-Chairs with author, Michael Lavigne

OBOJC Implementation Team, 2013, with author Michael Lavigne

OBOJC Implementation Team, 2013, with author Michael Lavigne