Welcome to the Literature and Art Forum (Read me first!)

Books have always been an important part of the Jewish tradition, with children learning to read the Torah from a young age during times in history when much of the population was illiterate. Fast-forward to today, and we have a lot to be proud of when considering the Jewish contribution to literature with authors such as Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis), Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) and Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) to name a few. We welcome discussions about every type of book by every type of author, but literature and art with a Jewish touch is especially welcome, as we have much to celebrate. We encourage you to use this forum to express your inner book critic and leave reviews and recommendations on the books you have been reading. Here are some of our top tips for writing an engaging book review: 1. Include a brief synopsis about the storyline and let the reader know what genre/s the book belongs to. (But be careful not to include any spoilers! if you did - please make sure to mention it at the beginning of the post) 2. Tell us how you feel about the book. Did you feel connected to the characters? Was there something unique about the writing style? Did the story have surprising twists? Was it a beautiful tale that made you shed a tear, or a nailing biting mystery that kept you turning the pages well into the night? 3. It can also be helpful to list titles that are similar to the book you are reviewing: “If you liked ________ and ________, you’ll love this book!”. 4. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you should include a picture of the cover on your review, to help people find the book. You can easily upload an image to your review. 5. We suggest including an amazon.com link so others can easily buy the book if they are interested in it based on your review. Through reading the books reviews others write for the forum, we hope you will be able to find your next great read. Asides from reading reviews, you can also find new books by asking the JewSurf community for book recommendations. You can do this by writing a post about a book or books that you already enjoy, and then asking if anyone has read any books that are similar. When asking for book recommendations, you should include Goodreads or Amazon links to the books you already like so people can get a good idea of what you are looking for. You can also simply ask people what their favorite books are in a certain genre; people love talking about their favorite stories. You can also use this forum to organize a book club to discuss your thoughts with like-minded bookworms! Thanks to the internet, you can talk to people all across the world. You can pick a book for the month and have everyone post their thoughts on it on a forum thread, or you can use the forum to organize a book club meeting on Zoom so you can all speak to each other in real time. If you are planning on organizing a book club event through the forum, check out our event posting tips here: jewsurf.com/jwall/united-states/events/48-jewish-knowhow-%E2%80%94-posting-an-event-online This forum is also for posts about art. You can use this forum to share your thoughts on recent exhibitions you have seen, have discussions with others about your favorite artists, or simply share photos or videos of artwork you enjoyed. Anything with a Jewish touch is especially welcome in this forum as we love supporting people in the Jewish community. We can’t wait to see your recommendations and reviews on this forum, happy posting!