In this session, Peter Florence discussed literature and celebrity with America’s newest literary wunderkind. Jonathan Safran Foer’s debut novel, Everything is Illuminated, tells of a journey to Eastern Europe made by a college student, also named Jonathan Safran Foer. Armed with only a yellowing photograph, he sets out to find the woman who might or might not be a link to the grandfather he never knew. Blending high comedy and deep tragedy, the search moves back in time, th...

Etgar Keret stopped eating meat aged five after his father told him that hunters killed Bambi’s mother in order to eat her. Jonathan Safran Foer was inspired by his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, to repudiate indifference and hypocrisy. This led him to seek the truth about the way animals are farmed, the damage this causes to both to the environment and our health.

Could vegetarianism be the new kashrut? No need to eat meat to be incisive, funny and brilliant.

Why is this text different from all other texts? The Haggadah recounts the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and is read around the Passover table each year. There are over 4000 known versions in existence; however this one is set to become the most wanted. Edited by Jonathan Safran Foer and translated by Nathan Englander, this Haggadah is filled with essays and commentary from some of the brightest Jewish literary and intellectual voices including Rebecca Goldstein, Jeffrey Goldb...