April Jewish Book Carnival

 I am excited to present this month's Jewish Book Carnival, a monthly event where those who cover Jewish books online "can meet, read, and comment on each others' posts." Organized by the Association of Jewish Libraries, the Carnival travels around and is hosted on a different participant's site on the 15th of each month. 

For me April has always been the month of renewal and reassessment (January doesn't do it for me). For many Jewish readers this is a time of Passover cleaning and preparation. What better way to take a break than with some Jewish reading. Enjoy!

The carnival kicks off with the newest episode of The Book of Life Podcast featuring cookbook author Paula Shoyer, "The Kosher Baker," talking about Jewish cuisine and its significance in our lives.You can hear the episode at https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-kosher-baker.html.

In March, the Highlights Foundation held a Jewish children's writing workshop, "Beyond the Holocaust & Holidays." Organizer Linda Epstein has shared her takeaways on The Book of Life web page. Read about it here: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/03/takeaways-from-beyond-holocaust-holidays.html 

Here on gilagreenwrites, I had the pleasure of interviewing fellow writer living in Israel Jeff Gerstenfeld about his new book Downsized and Oversized. 

Over on her blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, Deborah interviewed former U.S. ambassador to Romania Alfred H. Moses about his new book, Bucharest Diary.

New Jewish books for kids are always exciting and with many kids off from school, this is a great time to check out JewishBooksforKids.com where Barbara Bietz speaks with author Susan Lynn Meyer her new picture book, Matzah Belowstairs. 

On her My Machberet blog, Erika Dreifus routinely compiles news of Jewish literary interest. Here's one recent post.

Finally, at Life Is Like a Library, a look at food for Passover, includes Susan Weingarten's new book about haroset and a quinoa lemon cake recipe from Paula Shoyer, The Kosher Baker.

In April, Jill at Rhapsody in Books reviewed "Elie Wiesel: An Extraordinary Life and Legacy". This moving collection of speeches by Wiesel, pictures of him, and essays about him by others, edited by Nadine Epstein of Moment Magazine, pays tribute to the life of Elie Wiesel, who died on July 2, 2016. It would be hard to exaggerate how inspirational this book is. Elie Wiesel, as Ted Koppel said, converted pain, injustice, and horror into love, compassion, and tolerance.

Finally, Howard Lovey's latest Jewish author interview for Publishers Weekly is a fascinating talk with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, author of Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma.