St. Louis Jewish Book Festival Schedule & Tickets
All events take place in the Arts & Education Building of the J’s Staenberg Family Complex unless noted otherwise.
Winter & Spring Events
Bookend: Martin Luther King Jr. Day Event
Jessica Nordell, The End of Bias: A Beginning; How we Eliminate Unconscious Bias and Create a More Just World
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
The End of Bias is a transformative, groundbreaking exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination, the great challenge of our age.
Implicit bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behavior that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists, to corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in medicine, we see it in finance, and as we know from the police killings of so many Black Americans, bias can be deadly. But are we able to step beyond recognition of our prejudice to actually change it?
With fifteen years’ immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell digs deep into the cognitive science, social psychology, and developmental research that underpin current efforts to eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination. She examines diversity training, deployed across the land as a corrective but with inconsistent results. She explores what works and why: the diagnostic checklist used by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eliminated disparate treatment of people in disease prevention; the preschool in Sweden where teachers found ingenious ways to uproot gender stereotyping: the police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training has coincided with a startling drop in the use of force.
The End of Bias: A Beginning brings good news: Biased behavior can change; the approaches outlined here can transform ourselves and our world.
David Kertzer, The Pope at War
Monday, March 27 at 7pm
Graham Chapel, Washington University in St. Louis
Free
Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents not only from the Vatican, but from archives in Italy, Germany, France, Britain and the United States, The Pope at War paints a new, dramatic portrait of what the pope did and did not do as war enveloped the continent and as the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews. The book clears away the myths and sheer falsehoods surrounding the pope’s actions from 1939 to 1945, showing why the pope repeatedly bent to the wills of Hitler and Mussolini.
This event is hosted by Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis and the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival is a co-sponsor.
SLCL Authors @ The J
St. Louis County Library and the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival are pleased to announce SLCL Authors @ the J – a joint event series for readers throughout the St. Louis metro area. Additional information about St. Louis County Library’s author series is available online. Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public. All events are held at the J’s Staenberg Family Complex (2 Millstone Campus Drive).
For more information, contact Hannah Dinkel, Director of Literary Arts, 314-442-3294.
SLCL Authors @ the J and St. Louis County Library’s 2023 Black History Celebration Present
Renowned Broadcaster Alvin Hall
Author of Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance
Monday, February 13, 7pm
Free & open to the public
In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers encountered locked doors and potentially violent encounters throughout the U.S. From 1936 to 1967, millions relied on “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” the definitive guide to businesses where they could safely rest, eat, or sleep. Award-winning broadcaster Alvin Hall set out to revisit the world of the “Green Book”– visiting motels, restaurants, and stores where Black Americans once found a friendly welcome. Along the way, he gathered memories from some of the last living witnesses for whom the Green Book meant survival—remarkable people who not only endured but rose above the hate, building vibrant Black communities against incredible odds.