Post­ed by Miri Pomer­antz Dauber

Banned Books Week is start­ing tomor­row! Accord­ing to the Banned Books Week web­site:

“Dur­ing the last week of Sep­tem­ber every year, hun­dreds of libraries and book­stores around the coun­try draw atten­tion to the prob­lem of cen­sor­ship by mount­ing dis­plays of chal­lenged books and host­ing a vari­ety of events. The 2011 cel­e­bra­tion of Banned Books Week will be held from Sep­tem­ber 24 through Octo­ber 1. Banned Books Week is the only nation­al cel­e­bra­tion of the free­dom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sud­den surge in the num­ber of chal­lenges to books in schools, book­stores and libraries. More than 11,000 books have been chal­lenged since 1982.”

As Peo­ple of the Book, the free­dom to read is def­i­nite­ly some­thing we can sup­port. Espe­cial­ly since Jews and Jew­ish authors def­i­nite­ly have some his­to­ry of hav­ing their read­ing lists restrict­ed or their books banned. So choose a book (here’s a list from the ALA of the top banned/​challenged books of the past decade plus lists of clas­sic banned books, and banned books by year), curl up and enjoy. If you want to cel­e­brate even more, you can take part in Banned Books Week’s Vir­tu­al Read-Out, buy an I Read Banned Books bracelet  or an I Read Banned Books pin, or maybe go write some­thing con­tro­ver­sial that will put your name ALA’s list in the next few years and add it to the illus­tri­ous list of Jew­ish authors who have been banned or challenged.