A letter to the community written by long-time Book Group member, Charlene Gelber
The JRC book group has been meeting uninterrupted the second Sunday of the month since 1984. During Covid, we met on Zoom and have continued to do so, sometimes hybrid (at the building and on Zoom at the same time) and in person for our annual brunch meeting at a member’s home. Zoom has allowed members who travel out of town to connect with us and not miss a discussion. Members connect from AZ, FL, CA and even Delaware!
Our group was started by the late Leota Hirsch, the founder of the JRC Library and the late Ruth Kolodny, always meeting in the library. Their goals and spirit are still alive within our group today.
We choose books based on a Jewish theme. From Israeli authors about Israel, dysfunctional Jewish families (aren’t we all), memoirs of Jewish personalities. We will stretch that theme if necessary to read a certain book, such as the biography of Catherine the Great and that was within our guidelines because she was good to the Jewish people of Russia during her reign. If it’s a good book and we want to read it, be assured there’s almost always something Jewish to be found.
We’ve discussed our own JRC authors and we didn’t make anyone cry!
We’ve had translators meet with us to discuss the book from that perspective.
Our discussions are fun and informative, not just about the book, but all that comes to our minds about other themes in the book. If a member doesn’t think they will like the selection, it’s read anyway and for many of us, we are surprised by things we didn’t catch or understand and at the very least we appreciate the discussion.
Please try us out for the next meeting, always listed in the JRC email with a summary of the current book and selections to follow for future meetings,
We’d love to have you join us and maybe your input will spark an even better discussion.
We are looking forward to sharing our enjoyable book group meetings with new members.