What’s the scoop on pub­lish­ing? What Jew­ish books are agents, edi­tors, and pub­lish­ers espe­cial­ly excit­ed for us to read? JBC’s series Book­Watch is here to answer these fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions. Each month, a pub­lish­ing insid­er writes an email to intro­duce them­selves, give us a behind-the-scenes look at their work, and tell us about forth­com­ing Jew­ish books they can’t wait to ush­er into the world.

Hel­lo, JBC Col­leagues and Friends,

I’m David Behrman, Pres­i­dent and Pub­lish­er of Behrman House. This firm was found­ed by my grand­fa­ther in 1921 and has remained under fam­i­ly lead­er­ship ever since; we now boast over one thou­sand titles in print, releas­ing twen­ty-five to thir­ty new ones each year. It’s a source of pride here at Behrman House that we offer a wide array of books for our com­mu­ni­ties through­out North Amer­i­ca and for Eng­lish speak­ers around the world. For chil­dren, books to engage with Judaism through the art of sto­ry­telling. For adults, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring new mean­ing to Jew­ish life and prac­tice. And for every­one, a deep­er under­stand­ing of the pro­found mean­ing that Judaism has to offer us in our mod­ern lives. 

Recent­ly, there’s been much talk about the state of Jew­ish pub­lish­ing: can Jew­ish writ­ers and artists still find a pub­lish­er, and an audi­ence? A firm like ours, which remains mis­sion-focused on Jew­ish sub­jects and read­ers and has been around for mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions, has a unique per­spec­tive. Events that look seis­mic are some­times blips; those that may feel unique in our time often were expe­ri­enced sim­i­lar­ly by our fathers or our grand­moth­ers. When you’ve been through a solar eclipse or two, it’s eas­i­er to remem­ber that the sun will indeed come back. We remain ful­ly on the hunt for great man­u­scripts and artists, for both adult and younger read­ers, that explore the range of Jew­ish expe­ri­ences in today’s world. 

Books That Grab Right Now

In the wake of Octo­ber 7, we are com­pelled to reis­sue Mil­ton Steinberg’s clas­sic As a Dri­ven Leaf, with a new, pow­er­ful, and pos­si­bly con­tro­ver­sial fore­word by Dara Horn that calls upon us to look at the nov­el through the lens of the tragedy and con­se­quences of that day. Horn yanks us past the theme of assim­i­la­tion ver­sus tra­di­tion­al­ism long asso­ci­at­ed with the book, see­ing As a Dri­ven Leaf as a call to explore the chal­lenges of main­tain­ing Jew­ish cul­ture in a world that is too often bent on ​“con­for­mi­ty and con­quest.” Still regard­ed as a major influ­ence on con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish life and thought, this grip­ping tale of rene­gade Tal­mu­dic sage Elisha Ben Abuyah’s strug­gle to rec­on­cile his faith with the allure of Hel­lenic cul­ture dur­ing the rab­binic age in Roman Pales­tine is one Horn invites us to read again for the very first time.

A sec­ond com­pelling read for right now is Nina Cardin’s To For­ev­er Inhab­it This Earth: An Eth­ic of Enough­ness. The great work of today’s gen­er­a­tion is pre­serv­ing the earth for future gen­er­a­tions. Rab­bi Cardin asks: How can we repair the breach we have caused in our rela­tion­ship with nature? She cre­ative­ly uses deeply under­stood Jew­ish texts to chal­lenge us to con­sid­er: How much do I — or any of us — real­ly need? How do we know when we have enough? And she asks oth­er ques­tions, both spir­i­tu­al and prac­ti­cal, that can help each of us begin to answer those ques­tions for our­selves, so that we may devel­op the col­lec­tive will that is essen­tial if we are to take the actions we need to live (ade­quate­ly, not asceti­cal­ly) while allow­ing the earth to thrive as well. 

And at a time when we see so many turn­ing against sup­port of diver­si­ty and inclu­sion, we are proud to be releas­ing A Dif­fer­ent Spir­it: Cre­at­ing Mean­ing­ful B’nai Mitz­vah for Chil­dren with Dis­abil­i­ties, to help cler­gy and fam­i­lies nav­i­gate the b’nai mitz­vah expe­ri­ence in ways that lead to tru­ly embrac­ing cel­e­bra­tions. A range of essays and ideas from peers, par­ents, and experts pro­vide inspi­ra­tional and prac­ti­cal guid­ance on plan­ning a cel­e­bra­tion, man­ag­ing accom­mo­da­tions and phys­i­cal set­tings, and teach­ing chil­dren with spe­cial needs.

Books for Chil­dren that Show­case the Vari­ety of Jew­ish Experience

Through our ten-year-old imprint, Apples & Hon­ey Press, we pub­lish over twen­ty pic­ture and chap­ter books each year. Apples & Hon­ey focus­es on great sto­ries of the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence that help chil­dren explore their world through the lens­es of Jew­ish val­ues, diverse per­spec­tives, and uni­ver­sal eth­i­cal themes; sto­ries that help them build resilience and grit as they nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of grow­ing up and decid­ing who they want to be.

This year’s list takes chil­dren to Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties far and wide and cre­ates more win­dows into the Jew­ish immi­grant expe­ri­ence with sto­ries like Lily’s Hong Kong Hon­ey Cake, set in Shang­hai dur­ing and after World War II; A Place Called Galve­ston, a sto­ry about Russ­ian immi­grants who skip Ellis Island and goes through Texas instead; and On the Wings of Eagles, spot­light­ing the dra­mat­ic Yemenite air­lift Oper­a­tion Mag­ic Car­pet. Mean­while, we seek to broad­en kids’ biog­ra­phy and non­fic­tion read­ing lists beyond sto­ries of Anne Frank and Albert Ein­stein with a biog­ra­phy of the first Jew­ish (and first woman) pres­i­dent of Mex­i­co, Clau­dia Said ​‘Si’ (which will also be pub­lished in Span­ish); Hal­lelu­jah, The Sto­ry of Leonard Cohen; and Mac­cabi­ah, The Long Ride to the Inter­na­tion­al Sports Games.

And of course we are always excit­ed by new ways to intro­duce young chil­dren to Jew­ish hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tions, includ­ing: A traf­fic-jam inspired Passover in Israel (Road­side Seder), a pounce of play­ful kit­tens orga­niz­ing a seder (A Purr-fect Passover), a Shab­bat on wheels (Shab­bat Shalom, the Trucks Come Home), and New Year cel­e­bra­tions explained mess­i­ly by a young girl and her mis­chie­vous pup (Kay­la and Kugel’s Super Sweet Rosh Hashanah).