Pam Jenoff discusses Last Twilight in Paris, a gripping new novel of love, loss, and courage inspired by true events. Set between postwar London and Nazi-occupied Paris, the story follows Louise, a former Red Cross worker, as she unravels the mystery behind a long-lost necklace, a friend’s death, and a once-glamorous Parisian department store that became a Nazi prison.

Drawing on her background as a diplomat and Holocaust expert, Jenoff weaves historical fact and emotional truth into a powerful tale of resistance and redemption, exploring how love endures even in humanity’s darkest hours.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“A fast-paced and vibrant wartime tale of holding on to love against the odds and learning to fight for the truth.” ­­–Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Daughter

A Parisian department store, a mysterious necklace and a woman’s quest to unlock a decade-old mystery are at the center of this riveting novel of love and survival, from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war.

Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison, and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France.

Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever. Inspired by the true story of Lévitan, Last Twilight in Paris is both a gripping mystery and an unforgettable story about sacrifice, resistance and the power of love to transcend in even the darkest hours.
Journalist and author Jane Eisner places King’s life in historical and cultural context, revealing details of her humble beginnings in Jewish Brooklyn, the roots of her musical genius, her four marriages, and her anguish about public life. Drawing on numerous interviews as well as historical and contemporary sources, this book brings to life King’s professional accomplishments, her personal challenges, and her lasting contributions to the great American songbook.
 

Pam Jenoff, born in Maryland and raised near Philadelphia, holds a master’s in history from Cambridge University and served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, contributing to significant operations like the Pan Am Flight 103 memorial. She later worked at the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland, developing expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust. After earning a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, she practiced as a labor and employment attorney and now teaches at Rutgers Law School. A New York Times bestselling author, her novels include Code Name Sapphire and The Lost Girls of Paris. She lives outside Philadelphia with her family and pets.

We are no longer accepting RSVPs for Joy of Shabbat.

Pricing:
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Prices increase after Friday, November 7 at 4 PM to:
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🗓️ Final RSVP deadline: Tuesday, November 11 at 5 PM

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In order to assure the continuity and viability of our low-cost Joy of Shabbat program, we need contributions. A contribution is $360.00 and will help maintain the low per-person cost as well as help cover the increasing costs of food, supplies and labor.

Dan Slater discusses his book The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld, a riveting account of early 20th-century New York’s immigrant Jewish underworld, notorious gangsters like Arnold Rothstein, and the secret Jewish vice squad formed to combat vice and corruption. He dives into the themes of crime and redemption, antisemitism’s role in fueling reform efforts, and the unintended rise of organized crime that shaped modern America.

This harrowing tale of early twentieth century New York reveals the true stories of an immigrant underworld, a secret vice squad, and the rise of organized crime. 

In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, jockeyed for dominance while their family members and neighbors toiled in the unregulated garment industry.
 
But when the notorious murder of a gambler attracted global attention, a coterie of affluent German-Jewish uptowners decided to take matters into their own hands. Worried about the anti-immigration lobby and the uncertain future of Jewish Americans, the uptowners marshalled a strictly off-the-books vice squad led by an ambitious young reformer.
 
The squad, known as the Incorruptibles, took the fight to the heart of crime in the city, waging war on the sin they saw as threatening the future of their community. Their efforts, however, led to unforeseen consequences in the form of a new mobster class who realized, in the country’s burgeoning reform efforts, unprecedented opportunities to amass power.
 
In this mesmerizing and atmospheric account, drawn from never-before-seen sources and peopled with unforgettable characters, Dan Slater tells an epic and often brutal saga of crime and redemption, exhuming a buried history that shaped our modern world.
Journalist and author Jane Eisner places King’s life in historical and cultural context, revealing details of her humble beginnings in Jewish Brooklyn, the roots of her musical genius, her four marriages, and her anguish about public life. Drawing on numerous interviews as well as historical and contemporary sources, this book brings to life King’s professional accomplishments, her personal challenges, and her lasting contributions to the great American songbook.
 

Dan Slater has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, New York, Fast Company, Texas Monthly, Men’s Health, and GQ. His last book, Wolf Boys, was voted a Best Book of 2016 by the Chicago Public Library and is soon to be a major motion picture from Sony and Antoine Fuqua. The Officer & the Entrepreneur is in development for a TV series from Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman. For more information, visit @bydanslater at Twitter or www.bydanslater.com.

All our Supporter level sponsors are invited for a pre-event musical reception. Cantor Herman will honor us with a selection from Carole King’s music. 

To become a Supporter please purchase a Series Pass below. All Supporters receive a free book and free admission to every author speaking this season. 

Jane Eisner traces the professional accomplishments and personal challenges of pop icon Carole King, exploring her unique contribution to American music.

 Carole King’s extraordinary career has defined American popular music for more than half a century. Born in New York City in 1942, she shaped the soundtrack of 1960s teen culture with such songs as “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” one of many Brill Building classics she wrote with her first husband, Gerry Goffin. She was a leading figure in the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s, with dozens of Billboard Hot 100 hits and music awards—her 1971 album Tapestry won a record four Grammys. Yet she struggled to reconcile her fame with her roles as a wife and mother and retreated to the backwoods of Idaho, only to emerge in recent years as a political activist and the subject of the Tony-winning Broadway show Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
 
Journalist and author Jane Eisner places King’s life in historical and cultural context, revealing details of her humble beginnings in Jewish Brooklyn, the roots of her musical genius, her four marriages, and her anguish about public life. Drawing on numerous interviews as well as historical and contemporary sources, this book brings to life King’s professional accomplishments, her personal challenges, and her lasting contributions to the great American songbook.
 

Jane Eisner is an award-winning journalist, educator, nonprofit leader, and public speaker whose career spans leadership roles in major newsrooms, higher education, and Jewish communal life. She was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the Forward, where she transformed the publication’s digital reach and interviewed world leaders from Barack Obama to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and later directed academic affairs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. A longtime writer and editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Eisner has also held senior positions at the National Constitution Center, taught at Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania, and consulted widely for media and nonprofit organizations. She is the author of Taking Back the Vote and contributes to leading outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Her forthcoming book, an interpretive biography of Carole King, will be published in September 2025 by Yale University Press as part of the Jewish Lives series.