At a time when many Jew­ish writ­ers in the US and abroad are being black­list­ed by both oth­er writ­ers and pub­lish­ing pro­fes­sion­als, new spaces are being cre­at­ed to sup­port Jew­ish authors. One out­stand­ing new plat­form that JBC is proud to sup­port in an adv­sio­ry capac­i­ty is an inno­v­a­tive book pod­cast launch­ing on Decem­ber 3rd, The Five Books, found­ed and host­ed by Tali Rosen­blatt Cohen. In the fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion, Rosen­blatt Cohen and I dis­cuss why she cre­at­ed the pod­cast, how it will work, and what her hopes and goals are for it.

Car­ol Kauf­man: Con­grat­u­la­tions on the launch, Tali! How long has The Five Books been in the works?

Tali Rosen­blatt Cohen: I have been in con­ver­sa­tion with Jew­ish Book Coun­cil since last win­ter about what’s been hap­pen­ing in the pub­lish­ing space — the way the world seems to be clos­ing in on Jew­ish authors — and won­der­ing what new plat­forms are being launched in response. I have had the hon­or of work­ing with JBC through my involve­ment on the Natan Notable Books com­mit­tee and have seen first­hand the incred­i­ble ways that they piv­ot­ed and stretched post – Octo­ber 7th. They’ve become an amaz­ing sup­port sys­tem not only for Jew­ish authors but also for those in the pub­lish­ing indus­try who are feel­ing alone. I land­ed on the idea for The Five Books as a way to cre­ate a space for Jew­ish authors and also to cel­e­brate Jew­ish books at large. Many wise friends have helped along the way, but espe­cial­ly Miri Pomer­antz Dauber and Nao­mi Fire­stone-Teeter of JBC!

CK: Is the name a ref­er­ence to the Five Books of Moses?

TRC: Yes! I want­ed to ref­er­ence our foun­da­tion­al books as a way to talk about books that have been cen­tral to each author. We are, of course, the peo­ple of the book, and it all goes back to the Five Books. Also, I love a good top-five list!

CK: Please tell us about the five cat­e­gories you chose to struc­ture each podcast.

TRC: I ask each author (in advance) to select five books: one Jew­ish book they read in child­hood that impact­ed their Jew­ish iden­ti­ty; one Jew­ish book they read in adult­hood that has shaped their Jew­ish iden­ti­ty; and one book (not nec­es­sar­i­ly Jew­ish) that’s changed their world­view. I then ask them to share a quick rec­om­men­da­tion for what they’re read­ing now, and of course, we dis­cuss the book they’ve just published.

I want­ed to get at the ways books help con­struct our iden­ti­ties, but I also thought these ques­tions would be fun for authors to respond to and would make for rich conversations.

CK: What do you hope to accom­plish with the podcast?

TRC: I know that when I read a great book, I just want to spend more time in that world, with those char­ac­ters. So I hope it’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to do that and hear the author reflect on the book they’ve writ­ten in a dif­fer­ent way. I also think that when you meet some­one who loves the same books you do, there’s an imme­di­ate con­nec­tion. I like the idea that a favorite author might talk about a book that impact­ed them and that all these lis­ten­ers who share that attach­ment to a beloved book are then linked.

I hope we can add more tex­ture to talk­ing about Jew­ish life and explore just how many vari­a­tions there are with­in the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence. And I hope peo­ple read and buy more Jew­ish books!

CK: Who is your audience?

TRC: Any­one who is inter­est­ed in books or Jews, or Jew­ish books, or real­ly any­one who has read any of these books and thinks, I want to know more about that book or that author.

CK: I’d like to ask you one of your own ques­tions: Which Jew­ish book had the great­est impact on you as a young reader?

TRC: It’s fun­ny, because this is the only one of the five I have a clear answer to! I loved the pic­ture book Sarah Some­body by Frances and Louis Slo­bod­kin when I was young. It’s the sto­ry of a lit­tle girl in a shtetl around the turn of the cen­tu­ry. Her father is a teacher and her broth­ers go to hed­er, but Sarah must help take care of her younger sib­lings. When a woman starts a school for girls, Sarah’s fam­i­ly scrapes togeth­er the mon­ey for her to attend. She learns to read — some­thing her moth­er and grand­moth­er are in awe of, as nei­ther of them can write their own name.

I think this real­ly res­onat­ed with me; I loved hear­ing my grandfather’s sto­ries of his child­hood in a tiny shtetl in Poland, of going to hed­er. I also grew up in an Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty, and this book def­i­nite­ly appealed to my fem­i­nist streak. The joy when Sarah reads a page aloud to her class­mates is amazing.

CK: Can you give us the line­up of authors so far?

TRC: I don’t want to leave any­one out! I got to talk to so many fan­tas­tic authors: Yael van der Wouden (The Safe­keep, which was short­list­ed for the Book­er Prize); Ben­jamin Resnick (Next Stop), a debut nov­el­ist and rab­bi; Jean Meltzer (Mag­i­cal Meet Cute), ​“the queen of Jew­ish romance” who also went to rab­bini­cal school; Zib­by Owens (On Being Jew­ish Now), who is a pow­er­house in pub­lish­ing and was so gen­er­ous; Saman­tha Greene Woodruff (The Trade Off), who writes incred­i­ble his­tor­i­cal fic­tion; the amaz­ing and inde­fati­ga­ble Francine Klags­brun (Hen­ri­et­ta Szold); and more! It’s pri­mar­i­ly authors of fic­tion and mem­oir, but I real­ly want­ed a range in terms of the kinds of books that are fea­tured. Also, all of the books were ones that I just loved reading!

CK: The idea for the pod­cast came to you after Octo­ber 7th. How has Octo­ber 7th fig­ured in the inter­views you’ve completed?

TRC: Maybe not sur­pris­ing­ly, it has come up in almost every inter­view. All of us, I think, are still try­ing to ori­ent our­selves to what Jew­ish life looks like now — and of course that changes every day. All the authors I’ve talked to wrote their books before the events of Octo­ber 7th and are now try­ing to fig­ure out how those Jew­ish sto­ries land in 2024. Many of the authors also found them­selves on black­lists, hav­ing been labeled Zion­ist authors, maybe for post­ing a com­mem­o­ra­tion to the vic­tims of 10/7 or maybe just for hav­ing post­ed about a fam­i­ly trip to Israel. The idea of writ­ers try­ing to silence oth­er writ­ers is just anath­e­ma to me. Shar­ing our sto­ries is how we under­stand each oth­er, and we need more avenues for empa­thy, more bridges, not few­er. I hope the pod­cast, in lift­ing up Jew­ish authors, becomes one more point of connection.

CK: We wish you great suc­cess with it!