Hamilton’s Caplan Festival Returns To Celebrate Jewish Book Month

The Second Annual Marvin Caplan Jewish Book Festival will be held this year in Hamilton from November 1 to November 12. Unlike last year’s live event which attracted over 400 people, it will be broadcast virtually. 

Despite the drawback of not being able to gather with friends and community to enjoy hearing authors read from popular and informative new books in person, this format will allow the program to be broadcast outside the Hamilton area and also make it readily available to elderly or homebound community members.

Held annually in celebration of Jewish Book Month, the festival was founded and is chaired by Judi Caplan, widow of the late Marvin Caplan. Mr. Kaplan, who died suddenly in January 2017, was “an avid reader and gregarious figure who left an indelible mark as a clothier, politician, realtor and volunteer” according to the Hamilton Jewish News.

Mr. Caplan moved to the city in 1978, where he owned and operated an award-winning menswear retail business, Marvin Caplan Gentlemen’s Apparel. He was elected as Ward 1 representative on council in 1994 and closed the shop two years later, going into a new venture with Judi as Coldwell Banker brokers.

He was the first Jewish member of Hamilton City Council, serving until 2003, and was described as “a proud, devoted and active Jew and a strong promoter of reading and literacy who loved to discuss and debate almost any subject, drawing material from his own reading.” According to an election website biography, Mr. Caplan led Hamilton’s Rotary Club to the largest fundraising campaign in the country to fight polio.