Also this issue:

Is There a Left Left?
Finding a place for liberalism in the new America.
-Sam Adams

Making the Video
Doug Aitken's work mixes film, art, social commentary and a dash of MTV.
-Robin Rice

More Than Words
-Sam Adams

Wares House
-Diane Eacret

Sets and Lucia
-Steve Cohen

Carmen, and All the Rest!
-Howard Altman

Run and Hyde
-Toby Zinman

Noir Gold
-David Anthony Fox

November 7-13, 2002

artpicks

History Lessons

Elisa Ludwig

Local semitic history abounds this year at the JCC's Jewish Book Festival of Greater Philadelphia, which, more than Jewish literature, seems to celebrate a particularly Philadelphian Jewish experience. Leading the pack of notable local authors is former Philadelphia magazine editor Stephen Fried, who will be reading from and signing his latest book, The New Rabbi: A Congregation Searches for its Leader at the Joseph P. Sobo Sunday Brunch Lecture. Conservative temple Har Zion in affluent Penn Valley is both the setting and subject matter of Fried's book, which situates an account of the synagogue's attempt to replace its rabbi within the embattled context of religious culture in latter-day America. Of course the Philadelphian Jewish experience has not always been rooted in Lexuses, Ralph Lauren and towns with Welsh names. Historian Allen Meyers' The Jewish Community Around North Broad Street, flashes back some 40 years to a time when the "main line" for many local Jews was Logan and Olney. Meyers, who has also chronicled the Jewish community in Strawberry Mansion, South Philadelphia and West Philadelphia, captures a neighborhood and community in the throes of upward social mobility, and a time when Jewish life thrived. Taken together, both Fried's and Meyers' are important meditations on assimilation and cultural preservation. The festival, which runs until Nov. 17, also features local scribes and celebs Jennifer Weiner, Larry Platt (author of a new biography on Allen Iverson) and Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz.

Jewish Book Festival, Sat.-Sun., Nov. 9-17. The Gershman Y, 401 S. Broad St., 215-446-3012, www.gershmany.org.