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Fiction, 384pp. 2015) Set in the 19th-century Jewish community on a West Indian island, this fictional recreation imagines the complicate life of historical character Rachel Manzana Pomié, the Creole mother of French impressionist painter Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro. Discussion guide including questions and interview Kirkus Review Review by Sandra McElwaine,…...

(Fiction, 284 pages, 2019) Set in Germany and France in the 1940s, a young Lea Kohn finds her way to a renowned rabbi whose daughter, Ettie, creates a mystical golem to protect Lea in her escape to France. The three become enternally entwined in this tale of the power of…...

(Memoir, 280 pp. 1989) When her family relocated from Krakow to Canada during her adolescence in the 1950s, Eva Hoffman lost the place, people, and language that were central to her identity. This penetrating memoir recalls Hoffman’s difficult adjustment to her new life as an outsider in North America, focusing…...

(Nonfiction, 272 pages, 2021) Horn’s riveting assault on the cloying fascination with useful Jews boldly takes a stand for deeply rethinking the motivations behind universal acceptance of Jews-as-different.  Specialness does not mean popular acknowledgement of Jews’ decency, worthiness, or desirability as friends and neighbors.  Through a series of eloquent and…...

(Short Stories, 272 pp. 1999) These 22 selections from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, and Costa Rica, paint a rich picture of Jewish women’s experiences in diverse settings.  The protagonists often struggle to maintain ties with their Jewish heritage while trying to become part of a New World…...

(Fiction, 307 pp. 2010) This brash, irreverent novel tackles the anxiety of Jewish life in Britain today through the lives of two Jewish widowers and their close non-Jewish friend.  At times uncomfortable, always witty, this winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize offers a darkly satiric perspective on Jewish identity,…...

(Fiction, 592 pp. 2017) A mysterious collection of papers hidden in a historic London home sends two scholars of Jewish history on an unforgettable quest. Discussion questions Kirkus Review Review by Kristin Gibbons, Jewish Book Council Review by Josephine Livingston, New Republic, May 31, 2017 Sandee Brawarsky interviews Rachel Kadish,…...

(Fiction, 320 pp. 2010) As the kingdoms of Spain are being unified under Christian rule at the end of the 15th century, Luis de Santángel, chancellor to the king of Aragon, agrees to finance Cristóbal Colón’s imminent voyage to the “Indies.” A converso examining his complicated relationship with Judaism, de…...

(Fiction, 227 pp. Hebrew, 2002; English translation, 2004) This slyly subversive, semi-autobiographical account of Arab Israeli life recounts the story of a Palestinian boy who wins a prestigious scholarship to a Jewish high school but slips into listless malaise as an adult, despising himself, scorning his fellow Arabs, and resenting…...

(Fiction, 352 pp. Hebrew, 2011; English translation, 2013) When an ambitious Arab lawyer in Jewish Jerusalem unexpectedly discovers a love letter from his wife, his hunt begins for the other man. The creator of the Israeli sitcom, Arab Labor, spins a complex psychological mystery, a searing dissection of the individuals…...