The Cleveland Jewish Book Festival is back for its 25th year! Join Yardena Schwartz to discuss her book, Ghosts of a Holy War.

The 1929 massacre of the ancient Jewish community of Hebron was one of the most seminal events in the Arab-Israeli conflict–until October 7, 2023. One century apart, the echoes of 1929 in 2023 are key to understanding the complexities of what is, at its core, a holy war between Abraham’s children. Through the never-before-told story of a young American who moved to what was then Palestine in 1928, Schwartz expertly weaves 100 years of history in the Holy Land to demonstrate how the issues today cannot be fully understood without the context of ground zero of this century-old war.

Yardena Schwartz is an award-winning freelance journalist and Emmy-nominated producer who lived in Israel from 2013–2023, reporting for various publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Economist, Foreign Policy and National Geographic. She has reported from Israel and the West Bank, Morocco, Nepal, Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, and the United States.

Yardena previously worked at NBC News headquarters in New York, including stints at The Today Show, Nightly News with Brian Williams, and Andrea Mitchell Reports. Yardena graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School and is a recipient of the 2016 RNA award for excellence in magazine reporting.

“[A] compelling story. . . . If you are going to read one book to help you understand the current Middle East tragedy, this is it.”

—Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, and author of the New York Times bestseller Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor

This event is free, but please register here.

Sponsor:

This event is part of the Cleveland Jewish Book Festival, supported in part by an Ohio Humanities Ignite Grant!

Curious about other grants? Visit our calendar or browse our list of grantees!