Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival closes with Nicholas Lemann

The Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival is in its final stretch, and the closing night is the one most people have been waiting for. Hosted by Congregation Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill, the festival has been running since Sunday, October 18, and wraps up this Sunday, October 25, with a full day of events from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM. If you have not made it over yet, this weekend is your last chance.

The headliner for the finale is Nicholas Lemann, the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism and Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, who has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999. He speaks from 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM on Sunday about his new book, Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries, published by Liveright in 2026. The book traces the history of German Jewish immigration to the American South in the 1830s, following the Lemann family's experience in Louisiana across five generations and grappling with assimilation, identity and social hierarchies. Adam Reinherz leads the discussion and Q&A that follows. The event is co-sponsored by the JCC, The Jewish Book Council and Beth Shalom, and the book itself was named a Summer 2026 Natan Notable Book by the Natan Jewish Book Council, a twice-yearly award for nonfiction on Jewish themes that comes with a seal, $5,000 for the author and marketing support.

Lemann is not the only name on the bill. The festival has pulled together a wide range of authors and scholars. Joan Nathan, the author of My Life in Recipes: Food, Family and Memories (2024) and a multiple James Beard award winner known as the matriarch of Jewish cooking, is co-sponsored by the Rauh Jewish Archives of the Heinz History Center and the Beth Shalom Sisterhood. Anita Wyzanski Robboy, a Boston lawyer and partner at a law firm, presents A Force for Good, about her mother Gisela Warburg Wyzanski's work rescuing Jewish children during the Holocaust, co-sponsored by Hadassah and the Jewish Book Council. Dr. James Loeffler, the Felix Posen Professor at Johns Hopkins University and Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, discusses Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America, co-sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center, Community Day School and the Pitt Jewish Studies Program. And Dr. Miriam Udel, professor of Yiddish literature and culture at Emory University, presents Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature, her 2025 book that won the National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity, also co-sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center, Community Day School and the Pitt Jewish Studies Program. Udel was ordained by the Yeshivat Maharat in 2019 with the rabbinic title darshanit.

Beyond the talks, there is an itinerant exhibition titled From Darkness to Light: Mosaics Inspired by Tragedy, created by the Cincinnati Skirball Museum, the Hebrew Union College and Seton Hill University in response to the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. It is free to see. On the practical side, online registration is now closed, but walk-ins are admitted at $20 per headliner, with local authors and the Mosaic Exhibit remaining free. Single-headliner events start at $18. The festival is held at Congregation Beth Shalom, 5915 Beacon Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, in Squirrel Hill. You can reach them at 412-421-2288 or at bethshalompgh.org.