September 2026 Patron Newsletter

JBI Library Events and Updates Newsletter, September 2026

Introduction

Hello from Lily, your new Head Librarian at JBI Library! I’ve been settling in after a few weeks in the role, and I’m so looking forward to getting to know the JBI community and patrons. I’ll be excited to see you at our upcoming Fall programs and to hear from you via email. You are welcome to contact me at lsacharow@jbilibrary.org to introduce yourself and share thoughts you may have on the library’s direction, collection, programs, and more.

High Holy Day season is upon us! Our ordering page is up for you to select any texts you need in accessible formats. We have a wide range of large print, braille, and audio materials: from Machzorim, to individual prayers and supplemental texts such as Yizkor, Tashlich, Selichot, Kiddush, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), and other holiday liturgy, and our new 16-month Jewish reference calendar with candle lighting times and holidays. New this year is our braille edition of Machzor Lev Shalem, the Conservative movement's High Holy Day prayer book.

You can order online to either receive materials by mail or instantly download to your computer, just fill out the request form.

Below you will find upcoming events from JBI and a list of new titles available from us in accessible formats. Email library@jbilibrary.org or call us at 212-545-8025 to order your free books.

Upcoming Programs

The JBI Librarians really appreciate registration for our programs and encourage you to register so that you receive a program reminder via email.

If you have any access needs, require ASL interpretation, or prefer to register via email or phone, please reach out to us at register@jbilibrary.org or 212-545-8025.

Missed a program? Visit our online archive of program recordings on our Vimeo page.

Evolving Customs of the High Holy Days: History and Unique Twists: Two sessions led by Professor Eve Keller

Ever wonder about the traditions that make the Jewish High Holy Day season unique? Throwing breadcrumbs into flowing water; waving a live chicken over your head; inviting imaginary guests to dine with you at the holiday table: Judaism is filled with customs that are simply remarkable! Whether you grew up with these holidays or are just curious about cultural history, join us for a pair of informal online sessions in which we will explore the stories behind two of these unusual rituals. No prior knowledge or religious background is required—just an open mind and a love for good conversation!

Each session will feature a bit of lightweight learning followed by a casual discussion where we can share our own family traditions and quirky habits.

Session 1: The Magic of Tashlich (Casting Away) 
Thursday, September 3rd, 12:30pm – 1:15pm

Register

Discover the history behind this beautiful, 600-year-old custom of walking to a body of flowing water to symbolically "cast away" the past year's mistakes (and pocket lint!). We’ll talk about the idea of starting fresh and how different cultures adapted this ritual over the centuries.

Session 2: The Art of Ushpizim (Welcoming Holy Guests) 
Thursday, September 24th, 12:30pm – 1:15pm EST

Register

Step into the festival of Sukkot by exploring the mystical tradition of Ushpizim—the custom of inviting ancestral or spiritual "guests" to dine with you inside the sukkah. We will use this unique practice to discuss hospitality, memory, and who you might invite to your ultimate dream dinner party.

Joan’s Book Club: Divide Me by Zero by Lara Vapnyar, Audio, EN408922  
Thursday, September 24th, 5pm EST

Register

As a young girl, Katya Geller learned from her mother that math was the answer to everything. Now, approaching forty, she finds this wisdom tested: she has lost the love of her life, she is in the middle of a divorce, and has just found out that her mother is dying. Katya turns to the unfinished notes for her mother's last textbook, hoping to find guidance in mathematical concepts. With humor, intelligence, and unfailing honesty, Katya traces back her life's journey: her childhood in Soviet Russia, her parents' great love, the death of her father, her mother's career as a renowned mathematician, and their immigration to the United States.

Lori’s Book Club: Eternal Life by Dara Horn, EN408598
Thursday, October 1st, 5pm EST

Register

Rachel is a woman with a problem: she can’t die. Her recent troubles―widowhood, a failing business, an unemployed middle-aged son―are only the latest in a litany spanning dozens of countries, scores of marriages, and hundreds of children. In the 2,000 years since she made a spiritual bargain to save the life of her first son back in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, she’s tried everything to free herself, and only one other person in the world understands: a man she once loved passionately, who has been stalking her through the centuries, convinced they belong together forever. But as the twenty-first century begins and her children and grandchildren―consumed with immortality in their own ways, from the frontiers of digital currency to genetic engineering―develop new technologies that could change her fate and theirs, Rachel knows she must find a way out. Gripping, hilarious, and profoundly moving, Eternal Life celebrates the bonds between generations, the power of faith, the purpose of death, and the reasons for being alive.

Virtual Author Talk with Minna Bromberg, author of Every Body Beloved, Audio EN408913, Large print LTE08913, and Braille BRN008913
Wednesday, October 14th, 12pm EST

Register

In “Every Body Beloved: A Jewish Embrace of Fatness,” founder of Fat Torah Minna Bromberg lays bare the harm of anti-fat bias and the restorative potential for body liberation in Jewish tradition to confront fatphobia. She demonstrates what we can learn from Jewish tradition that will allow us to usher in a culture of healing and acceptance of all bodies created in the Divine image.

Virtual film screening of Babka (with audio description) and Q&A with the director and screenwriter Serena Dykman
Thursday, October 22nd, 5:30pm EST

Register

In Hasidic Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a newly blind Jewish Orthodox baker forms an unlikely friendship with a Queer Catholic Latino guide dog trainer, embarking on an eye-opening journey to overcome personal and cultural barriers in his quest to reopen his beloved bakery.

Lori’s Book Club: The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker, available from NLS as DB 76801
Thursday, December 3rd, 5pm EST

Register

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic. She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free. An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world. Chava and Ahmad meet accidentally and become friends and soul mates despite their opposing natures. But when the golem’s violent nature overtakes her one evening, their bond is challenged. An even more powerful threat will emerge, however, and bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their very existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice. Compulsively readable, “The Golem and the Jinni” weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, in a wondrously inventive tale that is mesmerizing and unforgettable.

New For You in Our Library Collections:

Newly Added Audio Titles:

Topsy Turvy Emperor of China by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Audio, EN406664 (Children's Book)
A mystical tale for children by the Nobel-prize winning author.

Hasidism and Modern Man by Martin Buber, Audio, EN404481
The account by Buber of his pilgrimage to Hasidism and his own viewpoint toward its message, expressed with great eloquence and enthusiasm, makes this a selection of universal interest and value.

When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Audio, EN400742 (Children's Book)
Eight stories based on traditional Jewish themes from Eastern Europe, some of them based on traditional Jewish tales, by one of the greatest storytellers of our time.

The Case Against the Wind by I.L. Peretz, Audio, EN402516, Grades 4-6
Ten stories of the miraculous and the wonderous, as they beface the humble and the rich, translated from the nineteenth-century Polish writer's original Yiddish.

Lech by Sara Lippman, Audio, EN408946
A mother recovering from an abortion in a Borscht Belt rental. An eccentric aging landlord, haunted by a mysterious death. A grief-stricken Hasid. The author explores the predatory side of human nature through conflicts of faith, trauma, desire, belonging, and longing—the particulars of Judaism and feminism, parenting and partying, as well as the timeless question: How do we carry on?

The Mussar Torah Commentary: A Spiritual Path to Living a Meaningful and Ethical Life, Audio, EN408949
Each essay in this anthology brings a parashah into juxtaposition with one of the mussar middot (character traits as described within the Jewish school of ethics called mussar), thereby providing an applied lens of mussar teachings that helps us to delve deeper into our tradition with increased mindfulness and intention.

Salinger's Soul: His Personal & Religious Odyssey by Stephen B. Shepard, Audio, EN408947
J.D. Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye, is one of the most iconic American novels of all time. Yet after his commercial and literary success, Salinger soon retreated to a rural town in New Hampshire and lived in seclusion for the rest of his life.
The book tells of his traumatic experience in World War II, as well as his transition from the Judaism of his youth to his embrace of a mystical form of Hinduism known as Vedanta.

Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Edited by Tory Kushner & Alisa Solomon, Audio, EN408948
As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates, a dangerous illusion persists that the American Jewish community speaks with a single voice, expressing universal, uncritical support for the policies of the Sharon government. The book brings together prominent poets, essayists, journalists, activists, academics, novelists, and playwrights, representing the diversity of opinion in the progressive Jewish-American community regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck, Audio, EN408950
From a 16th-century harem to a seaside village in the Holy Land, from Nazi-occupied Paris to modern-day Manhattan, Nicole Dweck's The Debt of Tamar weaves a spellbinding tapestry of love, history, and fate.

Newly Added Braille Titles:

Sinai and Civics by Rabbi Shmuel Super, Rabbi Mordechai Dinerman, Editor, Braille, BRN 010116
The Jewish ethics that shaped America’s founding.
This four-session course reflects on the Jewish ethics, ideas, and values that inspired and influenced America’s founders—and that still shape our government and society today.

Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power (Jewish Lives) by Neal Gabler, Braille, BRN 010117
Neal Gabler examines Streisand’s life and career through the prism of otherness—a Jew in a gentile world, a self-proclaimed homely girl in a world of glamour, a kooky girl in a world of convention—and shows how central it was to Streisand’s triumph as one of the voices of her age.

A Promise of Sweet Tea: Memoirs of a Survivor by Pinkhis Elliayahu Blitt, Braille, BRN010118
In a village in prewar Eastern Europe, young Pinchas Blitt is surrounded by the rich language and traditions of his ancestors. As antisemitism rises, Pinchas is beset by fears, but he finds belonging in family, Jewish texts, and prayers. In 1939 when the Nazis arrive, his beloved village is decimated, and he and his family must flee. A precarious existence on the run brings Pinchas face to face with his own mortality and faith, and with a sense of dislocation that will accompany him throughout his life.

Newly Added Large Print Titles:

Flag of No Nation by Tom Haviv, Large Print, LTE09015
The book traces the stories of Turkish Jews in the twentieth century, navigating the tides of antisemitism, Turkish nationalism, Zionism, and the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire.

Nothing is for Everyone by Eden Pearlstein, Large Print, LTE09016
Deeply, devotedly hybrid in influence and expression, this wild collection of poetry draws on rabbinic linguistics and kabbalistic meditation, free jazz and hip-hop—all to reveal the permutational quality of language itself: its instability, resistance to containment, and divine fault lines.

The Torah in the Tarot by Stav Appel, Large Print, LTE09017
The author carefully analyzes the Noblet Tarot, uncovering a rich array of Jewish symbols ingeniously concealed in its images. Given the deck’s origin circa 1650, during the Catholic Church’s centuries-long campaign to eradicate Judaism, Appel argues persuasively that its secret content suggests it originally served as a tool for clandestine Jewish education.

Newly Added Russian Titles:

Twenty Six by Mariya Danilova, Audio, RU401112.
Life as a child during Perestroyka in the Soviet Union.