The Book of Life

In a few weeks, I'll be posting an interview with Sadaf Siddique, co-founder of Kitaab World , a website focusing on South Asian children's literature.  We'll talk about the parallels between her "Counter Islamaphobia Through Stories" campaign and the "Love Your Neighbor" campaign that I spearheaded for the Association of Jewish Libraries. While I'm a little late, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Eid al-Adha, a holiday that took place just yesterday. This celebrates the end of the Hajj pilgrimage and commemorates Abraham's near sacrifice of his son. Interestingly, I just learned that there is some dispute between Judaism and Islam about which son was to be sacrificed. In any case, we can all agree that rejecting human sacrifice was the right move!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Dr. Reuven Firestone was the opening plenary speaker at the June, 2012 Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Pasadena, CA. He gave a fascinating talk called "Jews in the Koran, Jews on the Koran" to a packed house. In this brief interview, Dr. Firestone describes the theme of his talk, and also mentions his new book, Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea . CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries Theme music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band Facebook: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast Twitter: @bookoflifepod Photo: Left to right: David Hirsch, Reuven Firestone at 2012 AJL Conference Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail number at 561-206-2473 .

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮    In this episode of The Book of Life, we talk to 2 Jews and get way more than 3 opinions! These two conversations are the last of the material recorded at Book Expo 2008 . > Kathy Bloomfield , owner of the former Jewish book fair company For Words, member of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee , and Outreach Program Ambassador for the Union for Reform Judaism's Northeast Council talks about her life as a Jew by choice, and how it affects her reading. > Laurel Snyder , author of secular books for kids and adults and editor of Half / Life: Jewish Tales from Interfaith Homes , talks about growing up interfaith, raising Jewish children in an interfaith home, and about how questions of Jewish identity affect her writing. SURVEY:   Do you prefer the regular half-hour shows that includes multiple interviews? Or would you rather have shorter, single-interview episodes? Post a comment, e-mail bookoflifepodcast@g...