Book Club Selections

(Fiction, 307 pp. 2007) Henryk Weiss, a young Polish Holocaust survivor, has reinvented himself at Harvard as Henry White. In a world governed by genteel prejudice and strong class values, both Archie and Sam, his non-Jewish roommates, have secrets of their own. Narrated by Sam, this novel probes the inner…...

(Fiction, 118 pp. 1956) A day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, an unemployed salesman who is estranged from his wife and children, is living in a hotel with his cold and disapproving father, and has given his last dollars to a questionable character for speculation in the commodities market. …...

(Fiction, 256 pp. 2015) The novel pans one momentous day in the life of powerful Israeli politician Baruch Kotler, a former Soviet refusenik. Fleeing to the Crimea in the wake of political pressure and blackmail, he unexpectedly comes face to face with the man who denounced him to the KGB…...

(Memoir, 256 pp. 2020) Biale’s memoir is composed of linked stories about growing up on Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin in Israel’s Jezreel Valley in the 1950s and 60s, when children spent most of their time living apart from their parents in a Children’s House. Review by Jonathan Kirsch, J: The Jewish…...

(Fiction, 372 pp. 2008) One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Brooks has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious…...

(Fiction, 316 p. 2015) This inventive reimagination of one of literature’s most iconic and enigmatic figures renowned in history and legend, goes beyond the myth to bring David the man to life in Second Iron Age Israel. Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to…...

(Fiction, 384 pp. 2016) As an immigrant mother and her modern girl daughter wrestle with unthinkable choices in 1935 New York, they are forced to confront their beliefs, the changing world, and the fact that their lives will never again be the same. Discussion questions from Penguin Random House Kirkus…...

(Midrash, 184 pp. Hebrew, 2001; English translation, 2014) Knesset member, scholar, and teacher Calderon offers a passionate reading and literary retelling of seventeen passages from rabbinic literature, with a particular emphasis on restoring the voice of women. Each chapter begins with the actual Talmudic text, followed by Calderon’s imaginative expansion…...

(Fiction, 432 pp., 2019) In the late nineteenth century, Argentina offered an escape from poverty, pogroms, and the Pale — and held a disturbing secret. Talia Carner’s deeply researched novel reveals Russian Jews’ degradation under tsarist antisemitism and their desperation to ensure their children’s survival. When Batya’s father leaps at…...

(Memoir, 320 p. 2012) Moving to Arcos de la Frontera in the Spanish province where her father’s family had originated, the author explores the fascinating, fraught — and ultimately personal — history of the Sephardic Jews who had been forced to become Catholic converts or exiles.  Discussion questions Kirkus review…...