HUC-JIR Scholars Honored as Finalists in 2004 National Jewish Book Awards

Two HUC-JIR scholars have been honored as finalists in the 2004 National Jewish Book Awards, administered by the Jewish Book Council, the literary arm of the American Jewish community; the National Jewish Book Award is the most prestigious and oldest of its kind.

VISUAL ARTS

Grace Cohen Grossman: Jewish Museums of the World (Hugh Lauter Levin Associates).

Dr. Grace Cohen Grossman is Senior Curator of Judaica and Americana at HUC-JIR's Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Her landmark book about the more than 150 Jewish museums around the world whose collections are as diverse as the cultures in which they are situated will be the subject of her presentation of the Fritz Bamberger Memorial Lecture at HUC-JIR/New York on Tuesday, November 23 at 7:30 pm.

EDUCATION

Diane Schuster: Jewish Lives, Jewish Learning (Union of Reform Judaism).

Dr. Diane Tickton Schuster is Director of the Institute for Teaching Jewish Adults at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles. Her book provides an overview of issues in adult Jewish learning and advises rabbis, educators, and laypeople about how to think about the needs of contemporary Jewish adults. 1700 copies of JLJL have sold since it was published in January by the URJ Press. The book definitely is having an impact among adult learning committee members, as well as synagogue professionals.

About the Jewish Book Council

Since l943, the Jewish Book Council has been the only organization in the American Jewish community exclusively committed to promoting and advocating for Jewish literature. An autonomous agency since 1994, the Council, which maintains a national Executive Board of Directors, currently headed by president Lawrence J. Krule, serves as a catalyst for the writing, publication, distribution, reading and public awareness of books reflecting the rich variety of Jewish experience. The publisher of Jewish Book World, the Jewish counterpart of Publishers Weekly, the Council is also responsible for coordinating the nation-wide celebration of Jewish Book Month, traditionally held in the thirty days preceding Hanukkah, and for maintaining the Jewish Book Fair Network.