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Review by Ian Sansom, The Guardian, December 19, 2014 Review by Ruth Margolit, Ha’aretz, November 3, 2014 Review by David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2014 Beth Kissileff interviews Assaf Gavron, Jewish Book Council Tom Teicholz interviews Assaf Gavron, Los Angeles Review of Books, April 6, 2016...

(Fiction, 352 pp. 2017) Three intertwining voices span the twentieth century to tell the unknown story of the Jews in Ireland, in this heartbreaking portrait of what it means to belong, and how storytelling can redeem us all. Kirkus Review Review by Mike Broida, Los Angeles Review of Books, February…...

(Memoir, 341 pp. 2007) As journalist Godwin records the collapse of his native Zimbabwe, he is confronted with his father’s deathbed confession. The elder Godwin, who had always claimed to have been British, reveals himself to be a Polish Jew whose mother and sister were killed in Treblinka. Discussion questions…...

(Fiction, 275 pp. 2000) In this absorbing debut novel, an eccentric Jewish family is shaken apart by a small but unexpected shift in the prospects of one of its members, while recognizing congruencies between the elementary school spelling-bee circuit, Jewish mysticism, Eastern religious cults and compulsive behavior.   Discussion questions…...

(Fiction, 320 pp. 2016) With elements of Shakespeare and Yiddish theater, a rag-tag group decides to assassinate Stalin just before the 1953 Soviet pogroms are to begin. This satirical mad-cap adventure tale effectively blends historical events, family stories and ingenious imagination. Reading guide:  Kirkus review Review by Jane Ciabattari, NPR,…...

(Nonfiction, 287 pp. 2006) Baruch Spinoza, son of Portuguese immigrants to Holland, was excommunicated by the Amsterdam Jewish Community in 1656. Investigating Spinoza’s background, education, and his own writings, Goldstein reveals how this yeshiva student became an influential philosopher and possibly the Western world’s first secular Jew. Discussion questions Review…...

(Memoir, 320 pp. 2014) In the twilight of the Cold War, nine-year old Lev Golinkin and his family cross the Soviet border with only ten suitcases, $600, and the vague promise of help awaiting in Vienna. Years later, Golinkin, now an American adult, sets out to retrace his family’s long…...

(Fiction, 336 p. 2016) Spanning seventy years and several continents—from a refugee’s shattered dreams in 1938 Berlin, to a discontented American couple in the 1950s, to a young woman’s life in modern-day Jerusalem—this novel follows a postwar love triangle between an American rabbi, his wife, and a German-Jewish refugee. Kirkus…...

(Fiction, 416 pp. 2020) For decades, the tiny Jewish shtetl of Kreskol existed in happy isolation, virtually untouched and unchanged, spared by the Holocaust and the Cold War, until a marriage dispute spins out of control, and the whole town comes crashing into the twenty-first century. Review from Kirkus Reviews…...

(Fiction, 264 pp. Hebrew, 2002; English translation, 2005) Two novellas of searing psychological intensity deal with the pain of betrayal. In Frenzy, Shaul confides to his sister-in-law that he knows about his wife’s ten-year love affair.  In Another Life portrays the thorny relationship between a dying woman and her emotionally…...