Nicholas Lemann: Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries

Please join us at the 2026 Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival for a presentation with Professor Nicholas Lemann about his book, Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries.
Following an address by the author, Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle reporter and JCC Board member Adam Reinherz will lead a discussion and audience Q&A.
Co-Sponsored by the JCC, The Jewish Book Council and Beth Shalom
Sunday, October 25, 7:30-8:45 pm
Beth Shalom, 5915 Beacon Street, Squirrel Hill

In  Returning, Lemann writes about a diaspora community often overlooked in US history: The Jewish immigration to the American South in the 19th century. Told via the perspective of his family, German Jews who came to Louisiana in the 1830s who documented their own personal and professional ups and downs across the years, Lemann explores the effect of the assimilation on that community in the generations to follow and on his own Jewish identity.

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Breaking News: Natan and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Sum­mer 2026 Natan Notable Book: Return­ing: A Search for Home Across Three Cen­turies by Nicholas Lemann (Liv­eright Pub­lish­ing, 2026). 

“Twice a year, Natan Notable Books rec­og­nizes recent­ly pub­lished or about-to-be-pub­lished non-fic­tion books that promise to cat­alyze con­ver­sa­tions aligned with the themes of Natan’s grant­mak­ing: rein­vent­ing Jew­ish life and com­mu­ni­ty for the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, shift­ing notions of indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, the his­to­ry and future of Israel, under­stand­ing and con­fronting con­tem­po­rary forms of anti­semitism, and the evolv­ing rela­tion­ship between Israel and world Jewry.

“In Return­ing, Lemann traces his family’s his­to­ry, from the arrival of his great-great-grand­fa­ther in the Unit­ed States from Ger­many in the 1830s through five gen­er­a­tions of Lemanns who made their home in the Amer­i­can South. A vet­er­an jour­nal­ist who has long con­tributed to the New York­er and Dean Emer­i­tus of the Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism, Lemann spent years writ­ing about oth­er his­to­ries, oth­er fam­i­lies, before turn­ing his atten­tion to his own. Trac­ing that his­to­ry through pub­lic doc­u­ments, arti­cles, and archival cor­re­spon­dence, Lemann tells the sto­ry of a fam­i­ly who suc­ceed­ed as Amer­i­cans by mov­ing far­ther away from their Jew­ish roots. It is Lemann him­self who revers­es that jour­ney, return­ing to a Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and reli­gious obser­vance that had become for­eign, and, in the process, find­ing the con­nec­tion that was miss­ing from his ear­ly life. 

“But it’s Lemann’s thought­ful exam­i­na­tion of the forces that led to his fam­i­ly only attend­ing syn­a­gogue on Thanks­giv­ing, of his own dis­com­fort with the social and racial stric­tures and hier­ar­chies that com­prised the cul­ture of the Amer­i­can South in which his fam­i­ly set­tled, that give the book sig­nif­i­cance beyond just the his­tor­i­cal facts. Natan Notable Books pan­el mem­ber Matthew Hiltzik shared that ​“Nicholas Leman­n’s Return­ing is a com­pelling sto­ry that explores iden­ti­ty, fam­i­ly his­to­ry, accep­tance, and the impor­tance of embrac­ing our Judaism with pride. This touch­ing sto­ry of reclaim­ing her­itage near­ly lost to assim­i­la­tion speaks to the shift­ing, evolv­ing nature of Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and is espe­cial­ly time­ly giv­en the glob­al rise in anti­semitism in a post-Octo­ber 7 world.”

The 2026 Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival is hosted by Beth Shalom,
Sunday, October 18 to Sunday, October 25.

REGISTER FOR THIS AND ALL BOOK FESTIVAL EVENTS HERE