JCA’s Book and Film Festivals Bring a Splash of Jewish Culture to Jax

Jacksonville’s small but thriving Jewish population often looks to the Jewish Community Alliance to provide the most extensive celebrations of their culture within the city.

This November will be no exception, with the agency celebrating its 20^th annual JCA Jewish Book Festival as well as the 2016 Jacksonville Jewish Film Festival.

The book festival, which begins November 1, will bring in five Jewish authors to discuss their books – all of which either come from a Jewish author or relate back to Jewish culture. The line-up includes a cookbook-memoir hybrid from celebrity chef Ina Pinkney among others. All of the books being featured will also be available for purchase at the JCA during the festival. Dates and times for each book’s event are listed on the agency’s website.

The film festival, beginning on the 13^th, will consist of showings of seven culturally-relevant movies. One of the films featured, Leah Wolchok’s HBO documentary Very Semi-Serious, was recently awarded a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Arts and Culture Programming. The lineup also features For the Love of Spock, a documentary about beloved Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy directed by his son Adam. Other films featured at the festival tackle subject matter such as the Holocaust, Israel-Palestine relations, and Israeli cuisine.

JCA members will be familiar with the festivals – the book festival is a yearly event, and the film festival happens every two years. The agency has long been considered the central gathering point and cultural hub for Jacksonville’s Jewish population, and ranks among the most prestigious community centers in the city. The festivals are put on by the agency with the help of sponsors who pay to support the event.

For more information about the festivals or becoming a sponsor, check out the festivals section of the JCA’s website.