JBC is thrilled to wel­come Gina Schmel­ing as our first ever Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment. We chat­ted with Schmel­ing about how Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture has shaped her think­ing, the pow­er of read­ing to con­nect with our past, and her pas­sion for tzedakah. 

JBC Staff: Can you speak a bit about your career/​pro­fes­sion­al back­ground and where Jew­ish books and authors have had an influ­ence on your work? 

GS: Thank you for wel­com­ing me! I am excit­ed to work togeth­er, and hum­bled to be JBC’s first Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment. Jew­ish books and authors have had a pro­found influ­ence on my approach to fundrais­ing. Devel­op­ment work is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to match donors with trans­for­ma­tion and con­nec­tion. I am guid­ed by the Jew­ish val­ues of tzedakah, repair, and uni­ty. I also cel­e­brate the idea of Jew­ish joy and pride. Talk­ing about books and shared lit­er­ary inter­ests is one way I con­nect with donors. Last year, I rec­om­mend­ed Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land to a donor after we had exten­sive con­ver­sa­tions about Israel and today’s anti­semitism. Recent­ly, Pamela Nadel’s Anti­semitism, An Amer­i­can Tra­di­tion has been the con­ver­sa­tion open­er in many of my pro­fes­sion­al interactions.

JBC Staff: Can you speak on when you first learned about Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and our work? What excit­ed you about our mission? 

GS: I first learned about JBC through some author friends who were par­tic­i­pat­ing in JBC Net­work pro­grams. I had heard of Jew­ish Book Month, but I did not know the con­nec­tion to JBC. My ear­ly life was influ­enced by gen­er­a­tions of avid, com­pet­i­tive, and wide-rang­ing read­ers in my fam­i­ly. My grand­par­ents’ library was full of dis­cov­er­ies and won­der­ful Jew­ish and Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture. Liv­ing in Chica­go, read­ing and Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture were part of the cul­tur­al land­scape. My excite­ment for JBC’s mis­sion is nat­ur­al. I think of read­ing as an act of com­mu­ni­ty, and a way to con­nect with our ances­tors. JBC holds two parts of my core iden­ti­ties — as a Jew and a reader. 

JBC Staff: Can you share some of your favorite Jew­ish books or authors? 

GS: As a young adult, I tore through the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry Jew­ish oeu­vre: Saul Bel­low, Glo­ria Steinem, Philip Roth, Let­ty Cot­tin Pogre­bin, Arthur Koestler, Jerzy Kosin­s­ki, and John Irv­ing. Today, Dara Horn, Gary Shteyn­gart, Dahlia Lith­wick, Nicole Krauss, Joshua Henkin, and Sarah Hur­witz go direct­ly into my must-read stack. I read Horn’s Guide for the Per­plexed at a moment of per­son­al growth and when I was exam­in­ing my Jew­ish iden­ti­ty. Olga Tokar­czuk​’s ten­der respect for Jew­ish cul­ture and his­to­ry moves me deeply, as well as Irving’s brav­ery as an ally. I want to revis­it Han­nah Arendt’s work, as she had insights into both the Jew­ish past and future that con­tin­ue to be illu­mi­nat­ing. Cur­rent­ly, I am read­ing sto­ries by Israeli authors, includ­ing mem­oirs of Octo­ber 7th — such as The Gates of Gaza by Amir Tibon and When We See You Again by Rachel Gold­berg-Polin — and books that explore hope for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, such as The Future is Peace by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. 

JBC Staff: Is there any book that has left a major mark on your life, or shaped you significantly?

GS: I have three! Each rep­re­sents a chap­ter in my life as a Jew­ish read­er. I read Joyce’s Ulysses in high school with an inspir­ing teacher, Greg Bak­er z”l, who taught the book as a way to expe­ri­ence his­to­ry through lit­er­a­ture. Joyce cen­ters a Jew­ish anti-hero, Bloom, in a time of mod­ern change and polar­iza­tion — even nation­al­ism — who faces the con­flicts, loss, and long­ing of dai­ly life. It is remark­able to think that Joyce wrote the nov­el not long after the Drey­fus Affair and while anti­semitism was roil­ing the US and Europe. 

Col­son Whitehead’s The Under­ground Rail­road con­veys the ter­ror of slav­ery with the pro­found resilience of escape, leav­ing the read­er with an indeli­ble sense of lib­er­a­tion which I think con­nects to Holo­caust sur­vivors as well. My late father-in-law was a sur­vivor who escaped from a forced labor camp in Poland by dig­ging a tun­nel with oth­er young Jews before join­ing the par­ti­sans. I found Whitehead’s sto­ry of the dizzy­ing moments of escape, the con­stant threat of cap­ture, and exhil­a­ra­tion of free­dom to be very much like my father-in-law’s sto­ries of sur­vival. Read­ing this nov­el con­nect­ed me to his expe­ri­ence with an emo­tion­al immediacy. 

When I moved to New York City about thir­ty years ago, I start­ed an MA pro­gram in Human­i­ties. In a bizarre and mag­i­cal moment, I was in the beau­ti­ful read­ing room of the New York Pub­lic Library for the first time and read­ing Wal­ter Ben­jamin for the first time. Read­ing his essays felt like hav­ing a live­ly con­ver­sa­tion in my mind. I will nev­er for­get it.