Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

I believe it was beneficial; for the library to present itself at the Sonoma County Book Festival. We, Susan Miller and Gabor Por, talked to dozens of people and I think a good majority of them will visit the library sooner or later. We certainly raised awareness off their existence, collection, and upcoming events. I am particularly thankful for Susan, who being long-time and active resident of the county knows lots of local people and invited them to our table as they passed us. In case we decide to go back next year here are some lessons I learned,

• Bring a large textile to put on the table, under our materials. It would have looked much nicer.

• Bring small stones to put on the piles of brochures; otherwise the wind will play too much with it.

• Bring large, colorful posters to be hanged from the edges of the tent, to attract people.

• Practice the one minute and the 3 minutes spiel, so if somebody asks I would have a good answer about the library. Don’t get me wrong, we answered every question, but having a well developed script would have helped.

• Don’t plan anything after the event. (There was a party for the exhibitors and volunteers I could not stay long for, because I had other obligations.)

To show how exciting the event was here is some of the more colorful characters e talked to, besides the more average inquiries:

• An elderly gentleman asked whether I am Israeli. Having told him twice that I am Hungarian Jewish he shouted a few times “Death to Israel” than added “I am Palestinian.”

• A man in his twenties cam to talk about how the Torah relates to apocrypha. He had somewhat incorrect understating of both of those terms, but we had a nice conversation. Half an hour later he brought over two of his friends and they all looked at us with somewhat of a disbelief that we do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They were just surprised and amazed that people like us exist.

• A man who I cannot describe anything else than as a spoken word artist, asked permission to speak and then did that for 3-4 minutes without a break. We think it was political, because Kucinich, Palin, Nader, and Ron Paul were mentioned, but we are not exactly sure what his point was. He gave us two photocopied pages afterward, but that did not clarify his message either.

Besides them kids and adult alike enjoyed our organic, kosher lollipops, picked up our flyers and I hope we made a few new friends.