Jewish Book Festival marks its 39th annual edition from February 10 to 15

Festival hosted by the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver features topical conversations, spicy reads for Valentine’s day, and more

SPONSORED POST BY Jewish Book Festival

Yara by LGBTQ+ author Tamara Faith Berger, a reverse cautionary tale set in the sex tape-panicked early 2000s about what the body can teach us.

Leonard Cohen: Untold Stories by Michael Posner, a three-volume biography constituting the most complete portrait of Cohen’s life published to date.

Untethered by debut novelist Ruth Rakoff, a riveting story of unusual twin sisters raised by Holocaust-survivor grandparents.

The 39th annual Jewish Book Festival, hosted by the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, takes place this year from February 10 to 15. Presenting a variety of fascinating writers from across Canada, the U.S., Israel, and England, the festival is set to bring communities together during challenging times.

Featured authors dive into the effects of anti-Semitism and conflicting attitudes towards Israel, and reflect on big questions stemming from the use of AI (artificial intelligence). They investigate racial and gender diversity in communities around the world, honour a local hero, and explore multicultural connections. At the same time, music and dark humour are steady companions, spicy reads mark Valentine’s Day, and graphic novels, memoirs, and cartoons each have a full day in the program.

Opening Night kicks off the festival on February 10 at 7:30 pm, with a conversation between Alan Twigg and Canadian biographer Michael Posner about the latter’s monumental three-volume biography Leonard Cohen: Untold Stories, a nuanced portrait of the singer-songwriter’s extraordinary life.

At Closing Night on February 15 at 8 pm, hear true-crime stories from Allan Levine’s Details Are Unprintable: Wayne Lonergan and the Sensational Café Society Murder, and from Emmy- and Gemini Award-winning filmmaker David Rabinovitch’s Jukebox Empire: The Mob and the Dark Side of the American Dream.

A special event takes place on February 11 honouring local hero Rudolf Vrba with journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland, discussing his book The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World.

The festival’s annual Book Clubs series features Cuban-American author Armando Lucas Correa with his novel Night Travelers, and on Valentine’s Day, passionate novels take the spotlight with LGBTQ+ authors Tamara Faith Berger and Rebecca “Bee” Sacks. Other offerings to check out revolve around debut author Ruth Rakoff’s unusual twin sister story Untethered, Paul Shore and Deborah Katz Henriquez’s climate-action children’s graphic novel Steve and Eve Save the Planet, and more.

There’s also a Prologue event on January 28 with a book launch by Bernard Pinsky, in honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Epilogue event on February 25 with award-winning writer Ayelet Gundar-Goshen..

A digital program guide is available here. More information is at https://www.jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival/.

Post sponsored by Jewish Book Festival.