Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA
By Josh Marks    May 12, 2004

Wandering around the UCLA campus at the sun-soaked Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the People of the Book found themselves well represented.

Participants of the fair included The Jewish Federation's Koreh L.A. literacy program, the Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles and The Skirball Cultural Center amongst others.

"It's one of the few places in the city where people from every religious and ethnic background can come and mingle around the very important topic of literacy and books," said Elaine Albert, director of Koreh L.A. - the largest children's volunteer literacy program in Los Angeles.

The free festival drew an estimated weekend crowd of 130,000. Jews and non-Jews alike could choose from 380 authors and 280 exhibitors spread across the Westwood campus.

With such a diversity of participants there were bound to be a couple that generated some controversy. In this case it was Jews for Jesus passing out flyers and The Kabbalah Center - an organization whose credentials many in the Jewish community believe suspect.

Despite some of the more divisive groups at the festival, the majority of the participants and events brought people together; whether it was a cooking demonstration, a musician on the Starbucks Stage or the largest book ever printed - a 75-pound book about Muhammad Ali titled GOAT, an acronym for Greatest of All Time.

"It's exciting to have such a presence at this festival because there are so many people that are diverse and part of the Los Angeles community so we can really let them know that our mission at the Skirball is to be inclusive and to present programs that hopefully are enticing to their communities and their families," said Ilaan Egeland, Family Program Coordinator at the Skirball Cultural Center.

The festival was also an opportunity to show another side of Los Angeles beyond movies, surfing or whatever other image the rest of the country conjures up when the topic turns to southern California.

"(The UCLA Festival of Books) breaks all the stereotypes about L.A. people that don't read books," said Donna Rosenthal, author of The Israelis. "The East Coast New York publishing community really should wake up and see that it's not La La land."


Josh Marks writes for a community newspaper in Long Beach and is webmaster and contributor to the Southern California birthright israel alumni association (BRIAA)website. Besides freelance journalism, his day job is at Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles.