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Jewish Book Festival: It’s time to celebrate!
By Robin Mintz, Greater Naples Jewish Book Festival Chairperson
Iam thrilled with the block-buster attendance at the first four events of the 2024-2025 Jewish Book Festival. We moved our refreshments to the lobby and borrowed almost every chair in the building to accommodate our crowd. Our authors are in awe, not only of our beautiful building, but also by the very large attendance at the events. (They are probably thinking to themselves, “Who knew there were this many Jewish people in Naples!”)
Now, it is time to celebrate! The theme of this year’s festival is “Ten for 10,” as this is the 10th year of our Book Festival, and we are featuring 10 authors. In recognition of our 10th year, we have invited Talia Carner, author of “The Boy with the Star Tattoo,” to present on March 10th (!) at 3:30 p.m. Carner was a featured author at our very first book festival event, when she spoke about her book “Hotel Moscow.” Join us on March 10 for a special program as we celebrate the evolution of the Jewish Book Festival and have the pleasure of hearing author Talia Carner.
There will be two additional Book Festival events in March. Daniel Schulman, author of “The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America,” will speak on March 21 at 1 p.m. And on March 27 at 10:30 a.m., we will hear Lauren Grodstein discuss her book “We Must Not Think of Ourselves” (a Read with Jenna Pick from 2024).
The success of our Book Festival is due to you, our generous patrons and sponsors, and our dedicated, hardworking volunteers. Behind the scenes at each event there are about 20 volunteers who help with every aspect of putting together a seamless production. I can’t thank all of you enough.
All Book Festival events are held at the Nina Iser Jewish Cultural Center. One week prior to each event, a reminder email is sent to all ticket holders. Please reply to Reneé Bialek if you will not be able to attend. This allows us to accommodate people on the waitlist. Seats are still available for the remaining events and can be purchased for $25 each — but don’t wait too long! To buy tickets, visit jewishbookfestival.org or call Reneé Bialek at 239-263-4205.
