Announcing "Tolerant Nation"

The upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20th represents a turning point in American history. To mark the occasion of the first person of color sworn into the nation's highest office, journalist and author Lisa Alcalay Klug is celebrating multiculturalism in America with a week of giveaways of her new book, Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe (Andrews McMeel Publishing), a loving, irreverent and inclusive celebration of Jewish culture. Cool Jew, the only humor book named among the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards, honors the diversity of the Jewish people with information on Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Hasidim, Reform, and Orthodox Jews and much more. The book also highlights and celebrates Jewish commonalities with other ethnic groups, including Japanese, Native Americans, and Rastafarians, to name a few.

Klug is a multicultural American who cares passionately about both her culture and promoting cross-cultural understanding and tolerance. Her family survived the most extreme attempts to wipe out the Jewish people: the Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition. Her father is a German Jew born in Poland and liberated from Buchenwald by General Patton's troops in 1945; her mother was born in Central America to Israelis who spoke the now-rarely heard Judeo-Spanish language known as Ladino.

To promote tolerance, Klug is offering a week of giveaways of Cool Jew to visitors who register on her website, www.cooljewbook.com. "The Jewish people are a proud part of the multicultural fabric of the United States," Klug says. "And this is a historic moment to promote tolerance and cross-cultural dialogue."

In addition, Klug has formed a coalition of artists, blogs, and organizations, which will collaborate on the "Tolerant Nation" blog (tolerantnation.wordpress.com), edited by Klug, which will launch in conjunction with the inauguration.

To join the discussion about tolerance and multiculturalism in North America and to register to win, please visit CoolJewBook.com or Tolerant Nation.com. For more information, a review copy, or to schedule an interview with Klug, please contact Shelly Barkes at Andrews McMeel Publishing at sbarkes (at) amuniversal (dot) com <sbarkes@amuniversal.com> , tel. (816) 581-7498.