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Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series

A statue of a woman sitting in front of a bookshelf full of books

HBI mourns the loss of our beloved Conversations friend, Sandy Silberman, z"l, in September 2023. Please read HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe's tribute.

Want to explore Jewish women's lives through new and thought-provoking literary fiction, memoir and more? Want to connect first hand with those who create it? The Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series, dedicated in honor of our beloved Conversations friend, Sandy Silberman, z"l, brings us together in a warm, online setting to share stories that explore the diversity of Jewish women's experiences across the world from yesterday and today.

"When I first read your book, I was inspired by your story and your writing. Listening to you describe some of your experiences personally yesterday was a treat, and added even more depth to your story for me." — Rabbi Beth Naditch, sharing her thoughts with a HBI Conversations author

We encourage you to purchase the books, read in advance, and bring your thoughts and questions to discuss with our authors.

HBI has been a network site of the Jewish Book Council since 2010 which provides extraordinary access to authors with recently published books.

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What types of books are selected?

We select both literary fiction and nonfiction, including memoirs, biographies and scholarly essays. These include research supported by HBI, whether written by HBI Scholars-in-Residence or recipients of HBI research awards, and books published in the HBI Series on Jewish Women. All of our books will focus on themes related to Jews and gender.

See a partial list of authors who have participated in the HBI Conversations Program.

Which authors are joining the Sandra Seltzer Silberman Conversations Series this year? When are the events?

Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series Featuring Jennifer Rosner, author of Once We Were Home

September 2023

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Author Jennifer Rosner joins HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe in conversation about Rosner's beautifully evocative and tender novel, Once We Were Home, which reveals the little-known post-War history of Jewish children who were hidden during the Holocaust. Based on true stories, this heart-wrenching novel raises questions of complicity and responsibility, belonging and identity, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.

In addition to Once We Were Home, Jennifer Rosner is the author of The Yellow Bird Sings, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award; the memoir If A Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard, an inclusion in the Reuben/Rifkin Jewish Women Writers Series, a former joint project of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and The Feminist Press; and a children's book, The Mitten String, which is a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable.

HBI is a network member of the Jewish Book Council.

Once We Were Home is available at Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.

Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series: "Jewish Girls and Women in Forced Labor in the Holocaust" Featuring Janine Holc in Conversation with Joanna Michlic

October 2023

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An in depth conversation between noted scholars Janine Holc, author of The Weavers of Trautenau: Female Jewish Forced Labor in the Holocaust (2023) and Joanna Michlic, HBI Research Associate and Editor, Jewish Families in Europe, 1939-Present: History, Representation, and Memory (2017), about the impact of World War II and the Holocaust on Jewish families and communities, especially the lives of women and girls. Both works are publications in the HBI Series on Jewish Women.

The Weavers of Trautenau is available at Brandeis University Press, Amazon, and your local bookseller.

Jewish Families in Europe, 1939-Present is available at Brandeis University Press, Amazon, and your local bookseller.

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Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series Featuring Lea Taragin-Zeller, author of The State of Desire: Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land

November 2023

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Anthropologist Lea Taragin-Zeller joins HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe in conversation about Taragin-Zeller's work, The State of Desire: Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land. In this groundbreaking anthropological approach to the study of religion and reproduction, Taragin-Zeller investigates the impact of recent Israeli state policies attempting to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families. Utilizing interviews to provide an intimate account of the delicate balance between personal desires and those of the state, Taragin-Zeller takes the reader beyond Orthodox taboos, capturing how cracks in religious convictions engender a painful process of re-orientating desires to reproduce amidst shrinking public support, feminism, and new ideals of romance, intimacy and parenting.

Lea Taragin-Zeller (she/her) is a cultural anthropologist with expertise in religion, medicine, gender, and reproductive politics. She is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies and Public Policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the HBI Academic Advisory Committee.

The State of Desire is available at Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.

Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series Featuring Julia Watts Belser, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole

January 24, 2024 / 7:00 pm ET (online)

ASL Interpreted / Zoom Captioned

Scholar, activist, and rabbi Julia Watts Belser joins HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe in conversation about Watts Belser’s Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole. In Loving Our Own Bones, Watts Belser paints a luminous portrait of what it means to be disabled and one of God's beloved, delving deeply into sacred literature and braiding the insights of disabled, feminist, Black, and queer thinkers with her own experiences as a queer disabled Jewish feminist. What unfolds is a profound gift of disability wisdom, a radical act of spiritual imagination that can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with each other and with our bodies.

Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is a professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University, core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, and a member of the HBI Academic Advisory Committee whose research centers on gender, sexuality, and disability in rabbinic literature.

Loving Our Own Bones is available at Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.

Additional Authors Forthcoming