Nextbook Washington DC is a project of Nextbook and the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. Nextbook is a Jewish cultural organization that produces an online magazine, publishes a book series and presents events around the country.

Ilan Stavans
Resurrecting Hebrew
Presented as part of the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival
September 17, 7:30 pm
Washington DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW

“Trying to explain [language] to myself had become a journey of discovery, with Ben-Yehuda at the wheel,” writes Ilan Stavans in his newest book, Resurrecting Hebrew. “Hebrew…wasn’t only a system of sounds; it was an existential condition, a way of being, of establishing contact with others, with God, and with myself.” Stavans’ book, a close examination of the life of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, questions the role language plays in Jewish life—both in Israel and in the Diaspora. Complexities of of modern Jewish life and the tensions between notions of Diaspora the Promised Land, pulse beneath the surface of Resurrecting Hebrew. Ilan Stavans is the award-winning author of two short story collections and fifteen works of nonfiction. He is a Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College.

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David Grossman
Until the End of the Land
October 29, Noon
Abramson Recital Hall, Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW
FREE

David Grossman is the author of six internationally acclaimed novels, several works of nonfiction, a collection of short stories, a play and twelve children’s books. His novels include The Smile of the Lamb (1983), a fictional work about the West Bank, See Under: Love (1986), a widely acclaimed bestseller probing events of the Holocaust and its ramifications, and Someone to Run With, a love story set in modern Jerusalem. His works of nonfiction include Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel and The Yellow Wind, one of the most controversial and best-selling books in Israel’s history. David Grossman has won 21 Israeli and International Literary Awards, among them the Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literature in 1984. His latest novel, Until the End of the Land, was released in Israel in April 2008.

Adam Kirsch
Benjamin Disraeli
November 18, 7:30 pm
Washington DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW
 
In his new book, Benjamin Disraeli, Kirsch takes an in-depth look at the first—and only—Jewish Prime Minister of England. A zealous defender of the monarchy, Disraeli put forth a political agenda that resulted in new laws limiting the hours women and children could be forced to work in factories, legalized strikes for trade unions, created public housing and established standards for food safety. Though Disraeli’s religious status was contested (he was baptized as a child), he considered himself a Jew. Writes Kirsch, “Disraeli’s Jewishness was both the greatest obstacle to his ambition and its greatest engine. It inspired his most original ideas about politics and history, which insured that his very originality made him a perpetual outsider in the country he rose to lead.” Adam Kirsch is a book critic for the New York Sun and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. He is the author of two poetry collections, The Thousand Wells and Invasions, and two works of nonfiction on poetry, The Wounded Surgeon and The Modern Element. 

Mort Gerberg
Last Laughs: Cartoons About Aging, Retirement...and the Great Beyond
December 16, 7:30 pm
Washington DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW

Longtime New Yorker cartoonist Mort Gerberg has assembled an all-star cast of gifted and popular cartoonists including George Booth, Roz Chast, Frank Modell, JB Handelsman, Sidney Harris and Jack Ziegler to join him in this exclusive collection confronting, illuminating and celebrating the inevitabilities of life. Everything from cloning to cyrogenics and more is tackled with humor and pathos. Mort Gerberg’s cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy and The Huffington Post, as well as in syndicated newspaper features and on television. He has written, illustrated or edited nearly forty books, including his textbook, Cartooning: The Art and the Business, More Spaghetti, I Say and Joy in Mudville: The Big Book of Baseball Humor.