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Experience the story of the world's most famous Jewish song, as told by the song herself. In her spare, poetic text, Freda Lewkowicz has personified the song of Hava Nagila and made her the narrator of her own story, known simply as'Hava.'Renowned Indian-American Jewish illustrator Siona Benjamin, who is known for her blue characters, draws Hava as a young blue girl in a sari. Follow Hava as she spreads joy and hope throughout the world.'Benjamin's lovingly rendered illustrations move and dance across the pages with the music.... Come and rejoice and sing out the heartfelt words to this anthem of hope.'—starred, Kirkus Reviews

Featured as a Goodreads Most Popular Book of May 2023 and Top 6 Jewish Books This Year, The Jewish Chronicle Casey Cohen, a Middle Eastern Jew, is a sixteen-year-old in New Orleans in the 1970s when she starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then she gets in trouble and her parents turn her whole world upside down by deciding to return to their roots, the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn.In this new and foreign world, families gather weekly for Shabbat dinner; parties are extravagant events at the Museum of Natural History; and the Marriage Box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands. Casey is at first shocked by this unfamiliar culture, but after she meets Michael, she's enticed by it. Looking for love and a place to belong, she marries him at eighteen, believing she can adjust to Syrian ways. But she begins to question her decision when she discovers that Michael doesn't want her to go to college; he wants her to have a baby instead.Can Casey integrate these two opposing worlds, or will she have to leave one behind in order to find her way?

Jewish Noir II is unique collection of twenty-three all-new stories (and one reprint) by Jewish and non-Jewish literary and genre writers, including numerous award-winning authors such as Gabriela Alemán, Doug Allyn, Rita Lakin, Rabbi Ilene Schneider, E.J. Wagner, and Kenneth Wishnia, with a foreword by MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block. The stories explore such issues as the perpetual challenge of confronting resurgent anti-Semitism in the US, the enduring legacy of regional warfare in the land of Israel since biblical times, how the “entitled” behavior of certain ultra-Orthodox communities can fuel anti-Semitic attitudes, Jewish support of the civil rights movement, greedy Jewish businessmen who reinforce negative ethnic stereotypes, the excesses of “golden ghetto” American Jews, the appeal of “tough” Israeli-Jewish soldiers and mercenaries, how real estate fortunes are made, and the consequences of political corruption that feed into an exploitive system, how obsession can lead “good” people to do “bad” things. The stories in this collection include many “teachable moments” about the history of prejudice, and the contradictions of ethnic identity and assimilation into American society.

In this heartfelt middle school drama, Hannah's schemes for throwing her own bat mitzvah unleash family secrets, create rivalries with best friends, and ultimately teach Hannah what being Jewish is all about.With a delicious mix of prose, poetry, and recipes, this hybrid novel is another fresh, thoughtful, and accessible Versify novel that is cookin'. - New York Times Best-Selling Author Kwame Alexander Hannah Malfa-Adler is Jew... ish. Not that she really thinks about it. She'd prefer to focus on her favorite pastime: baking delicious food! But when her best friend has a beyond-awesome Bat Mitzvah, Hannah starts to feel a little envious...and a little left out. Despite her parents firm no, Hannah knows that if she can learn enough about her own faith, she can convince her friends that the party is still in motion. As the secrets mount, a few are bound to explode. When they do, Hannah learns that being Jewish isn't about having a big party and a fancy dress and a first kiss -- it's about actually being Jewish. Most importantly, Hannah realizes that the only person's permission she needs to be Jewish, is her own.

A collection of ten short stories portraying immigrant life in 1920s New York City by the acclaimed Jewish American author of Bread Givers. Anzia Yezierska, known as the “Cinderella of the Tenements,” calls upon her own background as a child of immigrants who worked in sweatshops on Manhattan's Lower East Side to bring to life stories of women struggling to survive in similar circumstances. From a hardworking woman who becomes the target of her children's scorn and indifference when they find success to the young mother and her family who are subjected to humiliating rules and circumstances when offered a vacation in the country, these are tales of women who strive, dream, and fight to hold on to their dignity and identity in a harsh reality. “Coping with scholarly dependents and chiseling landlords, chafed by the class system, ravenous for learning and desperate for beauty, Anzia Yezierska's protagonists have emotions they express in great, big, attention-getting gestures.... Louis B. Mayer was so taken by Yezierska's stories he brought her to Hollywood: The film adapted from Hungry Hearts is about as loud as silent cinema gets.” —Tablet, “101 Great Jewish Books” “Poverty makes no one eloquent, and lack of opportunity to learn leaves its scars. Yezierska, despite her literary faults, is a remarkable writer, a recorder of a history that still is attached to us, that still follows us like a shadow.” —The Los Angeles Times “These stories... are, in fact, slices of life as much as fiction, in that tradition of American social realism which harks back to Dreiser.” —The Irish Times

Bread Givers is a coming of age story set in the 1920s. As the novel begins Sara Smolinsky is a 10-year-old girl whose family has immigrated to New York City from Poland. Her father is an Orthodox rabbi who feels that it is up to his four daughters and his wife to support him as he studies the Torah.Sara watches as her father manipulates and orders her sisters into bad marriages and sees his many business mistakes. Determined not to let her father ruin her life as he did her sisters', Sara sets off on her own path that leads to family conflict, but with a promise of a better life. Masterfully written, a Jewish American Fiction Classic.

Hungry Hearts is a collection of short stories by Jewish/American writer Anzia Yezierska first published in 1920. The short stories deal with the European Jewish immigrant experience from the perspective of fictional female Jews, each story depicting a different aspect of their trials and tribulations in poverty in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. The stories were adapted into a film of the same name.

ENGLAND, SUMMER 1940. Following a brush with death on the Irish Sea, ten-year-old Käfer Avigdor unexpectedly finds himself back in London. There, he stumbles upon a sinister Nazi plot, which targets hundreds of people in Britain — including the most powerful man in the country. The one person who might be able to defeat Adolf Hitler. With the Germans threatening to invade England at any moment, Käfer musters all his courage and ingenuity in a valiant effort to thwart the Nazis. But will he succeed in time to save the day? One Boy's War, the sequel to Boy from Berlin, is inspired by real people and historical events.

Anzia Yezierska wrote about the struggles of female Jewish immigrants in New York's Lower East Side. She confronted the cost of acculturation and assimilation among immigrants. Her stories provide insight into the meaning of liberation for immigrants—particularly Jewish immigrant women.

Inspired by an incredible true story of two Jewish friends who survived the Holocaust, this “heartfelt and memorable tale of family, love, resilience, and the triumph of human spirit” (Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author) spans World War II from Budapest to Austria and the postwar years from Naples to Caracas, perfect for fans of The German Girl and We Were the Lucky Ones. Spring 1946: Best friends Vera Frankel and Edith Ban arrive in Naples. Refugees from Hungary, they managed to escape from a train headed for Auschwitz and spent the rest of the war hiding on an Austrian farm. Now, the two young women are starting new lives abroad. Armed with a letter of recommendation from an American officer, Vera finds work at the United States embassy where she falls in love with Captain Anton Wight. But as Vera and Edith grapple with the aftermath of the war, so too does Anton, and when he suddenly disappears, Vera is forced to change course. Their quest for a better life takes Vera and Edith from Naples to Ellis Island to Caracas as they start careers, reunite with old friends, and rebuild their lives after terrible loss. Moving, evocative, and compelling, The Light After the War is a timely and “unforgettable story of strength, love, and survival” (Jillian Cantor, USA TODAY bestselling author).

In a delightful new romantic comedy from Elinor Lipman, one woman's trash becomes another woman's treasure, with deliriously entertaining results. Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother, who held this relic dear. Too dear. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of'68 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion, scribbling notes and observations after each one—not always charitably—and noting who overstepped boundaries of many kinds. In a fit of decluttering (the yearbook did not, Daphne concluded,'spark joy'), she discards it when she moves to a small New York City apartment. But when it's found in the recycling bin by a busybody neighbor/documentary filmmaker, the yearbook's mysteries—not to mention her own family's—take on a whole new urgency, and Daphne finds herself entangled in a series of events both poignant and absurd. Good Riddance is a pitch-perfect, whip-smart new novel from an'enchanting, infinitely witty yet serious, exceptionally intelligent, wholly original, and Austen-like stylist'(Washington Post).

The acclaimed author shares a “wonderfully entrancing” tale of family secrets and self-discovery in a Brooklyn Chasidic community (Lit Hub).Winner of the 2020 Jewish Fiction AwardOn Division Avenue, just a block up from the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her ten children range in age from thirteen to thirty-nine. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and her husband Yidel have a happy marriage and a full life. But into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. At fifty-seven years old, Surie is pregnant.It is a shock. An aberration. A public display of private life. Surie feels exposed, ashamed. She is unable to share the news, even with her husband. And so, for the first time in her life, she has a secret—one that slowly separates her from the community.Goldie Goldbloom's On Division is an excavation of one woman's life, a story of awakening at middle age, and a thoughtful examination of the dynamics of self and collective identity. It is a rare portrait of a long, happy marriage, and a steady-eyed look inside insular communities that also celebrates their comforts.

Sharon Berg, a middle-aged divorcee with two children has gainful employment working overtime for the mysterious Rabbi Joachim, spiritual director of the Center for Mystical Judaism. Set in Coney Island, Sharon's efforts at making a life for herself and her children take readers on a journey though Hasidism as it exists today including its schools for children and the fundamentalist characters that run them. When the Rabbi travels to Israel on a mission, and fails to return, Sharon must confront difficult choices and herself.

Literary, lyrical, and cuttingly satiric, Mother India is a brilliantly original novel about Jews who go to India to find transformation and eternal release from the sufferings of life. Narrated in luminous prose by Meena, a Jewish American lesbian who has claimed India as her home, the novel is vividly populated by the darkly comic universe of three generations of women along with other family members, as well as by the Indians whose world they seek to penetrate. There is Meena's religiously observant mother, Ma, whose desire to remove herself from the wheel of life plays out in a Faulknerian funeral procession and cremation on the banks of the holy river Ganges; Meena's daughter, Maya, a misunderstood child coming of age in an emotionally treacherous household; her ex-wife, Geeta, a privileged and hedonistic Indian woman who enters their world with devastating consequences; Meena's twin brother, Shmelke, a charismatic rabbi turned guru and international fugitive; and the Indian servant, Manika, whose loyalty to the family both sustains and shackles them. Identifying with the humanity of its characters, the reader is drawn into a vast, tragicomic, and fascinating epic, Homeric in scope, drama, discovery, and surprise. Universal yet intimate, brutal yet tender, satiric yet sympathetic, Mother India evokes reactions—intellectual, emotional, visceral—that are complex, even contradictory, containing the might and bite that our current cultural hubris and self-involvement deserve. In Mother India, Reich offers us her most poignant and astonishing novel to date.

A startling debut novel about the burden of Holocaust memory and the implacable zest for life. Thirty-six years after her mother was liberated from Bergen-Belsen, the unnamed narrator lives a comfortable life in Paris. Her mother sees ghosts at every turn, longing to find the family that disappeared behind the miasma of the Holocaust, but she cannot reconcile her mother's trauma to the cheery bustle of daily life that surrounds them. The pain of memories that are not hers haunt her, weighing all too heavily until she is incapacitated by them, unable forge her own future. As our narrator becomes further entrenched in the past, a letter is sent by the Department of Missing Persons suggesting that her grandfather is not dead, though details of his survival and current situation are unknown. Along with her mother, the narrator begins a desperate hunt, fighting through the past and present, love and loss, and her own vulnerabilities to find the truth and rid them both of their lingering ghosts.

For fans of The Nightingale and Brooklyn comes an exquisite and unforgettable novel about friendship, love, and redemption in a circle of immigrants who flee Europe for 1930s-era New York City.'Carter's warm and beautiful prose brings us love, tragedy, mystery and hope in a moving celebration of America and the people who have come to it.'-- Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky Us and Away On the eve of World War II Egon Schneider--a gallant and successful Jewish doctor, son of two world-famous naturalists--escapes Germany to an uncertain future across the sea. Settling into the unfamiliar rhythms of upper Manhattan, he finds solace among a tight-knit group of fellow immigrants, tenacious men and women drawn together as much by their differences as by their memories of the world they left behind. They each suffer degradations and triumphs large and small: Egon's terminally acerbic lifelong friend, bestselling author Meyer Leavitt, now wears a sandwich board on a New York street corner; Catrina Harty, the headstrong daughter of a dirt-poor Irish trolley driver, survives heartbreak and loss to forge an unlikely alliance; and Egon himself is forced to abandon his thriving medical practice to become the'Cheese Man'at a Washington Heights grocery. But their spirits remain unbroken, and when their little community is faced with an existential threat, these strangers rise up together in hopes of creating a permanent home. With her uncanny ability to create indelible characters in unforgettable circumstances, bestselling author Betsy Carter has crafted a gorgeous novel that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt adrift and longed for home.

A political thriller set against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the Pulitzer-nominated, bestselling author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year “Blends elements of spy thriller and love story, magical realism, and an all-too-real history of one of the world's most intractable problems: peace between Israel and its neighbors.'—The Boston GlobeIn the Negev desert, a nameless prisoner languishes in a secret cell, his only companion the guard who has watched over him for a dozen years. Meanwhile, the prisoner's arch nemesis—The General, Israel's most controversial leader—lies dying in a hospital bed. From Israel and Gaza to Paris, Italy, and America, Englander provides a kaleidoscopic view of the prisoner's unlikely journey to his cell. Dinner at the Center of the Earth is a tour de force—a powerful, wryly funny, intensely suspenseful portrait of a nation riven by insoluble conflict, and the man who improbably lands at the center of it all.

The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield is an often laugh-out-loud comedy of conflicting manners, values, and customs, set against the backdrop of a Russian immigrant family's struggle to assimilate, their newfound love of capitalism, and their insistent push for their children's tangible success. Emma Kaulfield escaped the Soviet Union in the 1980s when she was 10--hers was one of the last Jewish families to be let out. Now a gorgeous young woman, going to grad school at NYU, chaffing at the cultural restraints of her heritage, Emma is engaged to someone just like her--a handsome young Russian Jew--but then a steamy encounter with a stranger in a restaurant bathroom turns into a torrid love affair. She wrestles with what she knows she should do (career vs. art); who she should love (one of her own vs. the exotic temptation), to remain loyal to her family, her people--after all they have suffered--or cut ties and defy those who love her. The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield builds in power and suspense, easily becoming an all-night binge read, impossible to put down. Fishbeyn's debut novel is sexy, hilarious, heartbreaking, and breathtaking.

First published in 1936, The People of Godlbozhits depicts the ordinary yet deeply complex life of a Jewish community, following the fortunes of one family and its many descendants. Set in a shtetl in Poland between the world wars, Rashkin's satiric novel offers a vivid cross-section not only of the residents'triumphs and struggles but also of their dense and complicated web of humanity. With biting humor and acerbic wit, Rashkin portrays the stratified society—the petty bourgeoisie, artisans, and proletariat—observing the crookedness at every level. The novel's brisk and oftentimes lively Yiddish prose and its colorful and irascible cast of characters give readers a Yiddish Yoknapatawpha in all its tragic absurdity.

THE SONGS follows Iz Herzl, famed political activist and protest singer, who has always told his children that it is the future not the past they should concentrate on. Now, at 80, an almost forgotten figure, estranged from everyone who has ever loved him, his refusal to look back on his extraordinary life leaves his teenage children, the brilliant Rose and her ailing younger brother, Huddie, adrift in myths and uncertainty that cause them to retreat into a secret world of their own. Iz's other child, Joseph, a faltering Broadway songwriter 40 years older than Rose and Huddie, whose one disastrous meeting as a child with his father has left him lost and alone, is on a shocking and violent path to self-destruction. When the disparate members of the Herzl family begin to converge, the ambiguities at the heart of Iz Herzl's life begin to surface in a way that will change all of them.

From filmmaker and New Yorker contributor Susanna Fogel comes a comedic novel about a fractured family of New England Jews and their discontents, over the course of three decades. Told entirely in letters to a heroine we never meet, we get to know the Fellers through their check-ins with Julie: their thank-you notes, letters of condolence, family gossip, and good old-fashioned familial passive-aggression. Together, their missives – some sardonic, others absurd, others heartbreaking – weave a tapestry of a very modern family trying (and often failing) to show one another they care.The titular “Nuclear Family” includes, among many others:A narcissistic former-child-prodigy father who has taken up haiku writing in his old age and his new wife, a traditional Chinese woman whose attempts to help her stepdaughter find a man include FedExing her silk gowns from Filene's Basement. Their six-year-old son, Stuart, whose favorite condiment is truffle oil and who wears suits to bed. Julie's mother, a psychologist who never remarried but may be in love with her arrogant Rabbi and overshares about everything, including the threesome she had with Dutch grad students in 1972.

The Rise of David Levinsky is a novel by Abraham Cahan. It was published in 1917, and remains Cahan's best known work. The book is told in the form of a fictional autobiography.

This novel is inspired by a true historical event. Before Theodore Herzl there was Mordecai Manuel Noah, an American journalist, diplomat, playwright, and visionary. In September 1825 he bought Grand Island, downriver from Niagara Falls, from the local Native Americans as a place of refuge for the Jewish people and called it “Ararat.” But no Jews came. What if they had followed Noah's call? In Nava Semel's alternate history Jews from throughout the world flee persecution and come to Ararat. Isra Isle becomes the smallest state in the US. Israel does not exist, and there was no Holocaust. In exploring this what-if scenario, Semel stimulates new thinking about memory, Jewish/Israeli identity, attitudes toward minorities, women in top political positions, and the place of cultural heritage.The novel is divided into three parts. Part 1, a detective story, opens in September 2001 when Liam Emanuel, an Israeli descendant of Noah, learns about and inherits this island. He leaves Israel intending to reclaim this “Promised Land” in America. Shortly after he arrives in America Liam disappears. Simon T. Lenox, a Native American police investigator, tries to recover Israel's “missing son.” Part 2 flashes back to the time and events surrounding Mordecai Noah's purchase of the island from the local Native Americans. Part 3 poses an alternate history: the rise of a successful modern Jewish city-state, Isra Isle, on the northern New York and Canadian border—a metropolis that looks remarkably like New York City both before and after 9/11—in which the Jewish female governor campaigns to become president of the United States.Nava Semel has published novels, short stories, poetry, plays, children's books, and a number of TV scripts. Her books have been translated and published in many countries. Her book, Becoming Gershona, received the 1990 National Jewish Book Award in the US.

After her father's death, a musician must go home to Israel to confront the relationships she left behind in this novel by the author of The Retrospective Noga, forty-two and divorced, is a harpist with an orchestra in the Netherlands. Upon the sudden death of her father, she is summoned home to Jerusalem by her brother to help make decisions in urgent family and personal matters. Returning also means facing a former husband who left her when she refused him children, but whose passion for her remains even though he is remarried and the father of two. For her imposed three-month residence in Israel, her brother finds her work as an extra in movies, television, and opera. These new identities undermine the firm boundaries of behavior heretofore protected by the music she plays, and Noga, always an extra in someone else's story, takes charge of the plot. The Extra is Yehoshua at his liveliest storytelling best—a bravura performance.“Engaging…Yehoshua is a master in his visual sketches of scenes.”—The New York Times Book Review “[A] finely etched new novel…A marvel of a book.”—Haaretz “Four and a half decades after his first book's publication, his twentieth shows Yehoshua's writing chops are undiminished and his content fearlessly topical.”—New York Journal of Books “Rich in reflection and personal truth…Masterful.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Award-winning Israeli novelist Yehoshua gives moral force, even grandeur, to the inevitable push-pull of one family's life.”—Library Journal, starred review

A coming-of-age classic about two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, this “profound and universal” (The Wall Street Journal) story of faith, family, tradition, and assimilation remains deeply pertinent today. “Works of this caliber should be occasion for singing in the streets and shouting from the rooftops.” —Chicago TribuneIt's the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they've never met, not until the day an accident at a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys—one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America—are drawn into one another's worlds despite a father's strong opposition. Set against the backdrop of World War II and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself—even if it might mean disappointing those you love.

In turn of the century Eastern Europe, a brother and sister have been chosen to guard an ancient cemetery of Jewish martyrs situated on an isolated mountain. The endless snows protect them from the pogroms and plagues that rage in the world below, but that same protective blanket cuts them off from their people and tradition. Escape--from loneliness, from wavering piety, and from the burgeoning desire they feel for one another--becomes impossible. A parable for our times, by the writer whom Irving Howe called'one of the best novelists alive,'Unto the Soul lays bare the deepest stirrings of religious feeling and despair within the human soul.

A caravan of Jews wanders through Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century on a heartbreaking quest. Spiritual seekers and the elderly, widows and orphans, the sick and the dying, con artists and adventurers, victims of pogroms who have no place else to go–they are all on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but the journey is filled with unexpected detours and unanticipated disaster.Among them is Laish, a fifteen-year-old orphan, through whose eyes we observe the interactions within this ragtag group of dreamers, holy men, misfits, and thieves as they battle with one another, try to stay one step ahead of the gendarmes, and do what little they can to keep up their flagging spirits. With the death of the rabbi who brought the group together, they are now led by men whom Laish refers to as “the dealers”–black-market traders whose motives are questionable but who periodically infuse the group with the money they need to get to the next town.Years pass, tempers start to fray, and the caravan grows smaller as people die or abandon the venture. A brutal winter and typhoid epidemic further decimate the ranks, and the pilgrims have begun to reach the limits of their endurance. The dream of Jerusalem keeps the remnant going, and against all odds they finally arrive–emotionally and physically exhausted–at the port city of Galacz. They see their ship in the harbor, but whether they will actually make it onto that ship is suddenly and tragically thrown into doubt.This magnificent new novel from Aharon Appelfeld (“One of the greatest writers of the age” —The Guardian) resonates with a universality of experience: the will to survive, the struggle to hold on to hope.

The Anticipated Sequel to Identity Theft Continues the Suspense and Intrigue!Moments after David Lebowitz is finally convinced that Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah, he is thrust into a soul-wrenching family tragedy. In deep anguish, he cries out to Heaven. His prayer is answered in a most unexpected and unusual way.An angel named Ariel transports David back into his celestial classroom where history- shaping events unfold right in front of him. Through supernatural time travel, David comes face-to-face with first-century pioneers such as Apostles James and Paul, along with early disciples of Yeshua, like Priscilla and Aquila.Before his eyes, a world-changing—and at times, shocking—history is being written. While David cannot change the past, he is able to unlearn horrific myths about Yeshua and the Jewish people—only to return to earth for the test of his life!Experience history like never before and catch a glimpse of life for the first congregation of Jesus-followers in Jerusalem. You will also discover how the diabolical snares of anti-semitism and replacement theology sought to sabotage God's work in their midst.See God's unfolding plan to bring the Jewish people to salvation and release Yeshua's power in the Earth!

A dazzling debut novel set in New York City's Jewish immigrant community in 1935... How was it that out of all the girls in the office, I was the one to find myself in this situation? This didn't happen to nice Jewish girls. In 1935, Dottie Krasinsky is the epitome of the modern girl. A bookkeeper in Midtown Manhattan, Dottie steals kisses from her steady beau, meets her girlfriends for drinks, and eyes the latest fashions. Yet at heart, she is a dutiful daughter, living with her Yiddish-speaking parents on the Lower East Side. So when, after a single careless night, she finds herself in a family way by a charismatic but unsuitable man, she is desperate: unwed, unsure, and running out of options. After the birth of five children—and twenty years as a housewife—Dottie's immigrant mother, Rose, is itching to return to the social activism she embraced as a young woman. With strikes and breadlines at home and National Socialism rising in Europe, there is much more important work to do than cooking and cleaning. So when she realizes that she, too, is pregnant, she struggles to reconcile her longings with her faith. As mother and daughter wrestle with unthinkable choices, they are forced to confront their beliefs, the changing world, and the fact that their lives will never again be the same….

“Stewart O'Nan's City of Secrets will keep you up all night reading – what a beautifully crafted novel.” – Alan Furst, New York Times bestselling author of Mission to ParisFrom master storyteller Stewart O'Nan, author of Henry, Himself and Emily, Alone, a timely moral thriller of the Jewish underground resistance in Jerusalem after the Second World WarIn 1945, with no homes to return to, Jewish refugees by the tens of thousands set out for Palestine. Those who made it were hunted as illegals by the British mandatory authorities there and relied on the underground to shelter them; taking fake names, they blended with the population, joining the wildly different factions fighting for the independence of Israel. From master storyteller Stewart O'Nan, author of Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself, City of Secrets follows one survivor, Brand, as he tries to regain himself after losing everyone he's ever loved. Now driving a taxi provided—like his new identity—by the underground, he navigates the twisting streets of Jerusalem as well as the overlapping, sometimes deadly loyalties of the resistance. Alone, haunted by memories, he tries to become again the man he was before the war—honest, strong, capable of moral choice. He falls in love with Eva, a fellow survivor and member of his cell, reclaims his faith, and commits himself to the revolution, accepting secret missions that grow more and more dangerous even as he begins to suspect he's being used by their cell's dashing leader, Asher. By the time Brand understands the truth, it's too late, and the tragedy that ensues changes history. A noirish, deeply felt novel of intrigue and identity written in O'Nan's trademark lucent style, City of Secrets asks how both despair and faith can lead us astray, and what happens when, with the noblest intentions, we join movements beyond our control.

Set in New York City and Prague in 1992, Kafka's Son follows a first-person narrator who is a documentary filmmaker. In a New York synagogue, he meets an elderly Czech Jew named Jiri, once the head of the famous Jewish Museum in Prague, with whom he discovers a shared love of Kafka. Inspired by this friendship, the narrator travels to Prague to make a film about Jewish life in the city and its Kafka connections.In his search for answers, he crosses paths with the beadle of the famous 900-year-old Altneushul synagogue, the rumored home to a legendary golem hidden away in a secret attic—which may or may not exist; a mysterious man who may or may not be Kafka's son—and who may or may not exist; Mr. Klein, who although several years younger than Jiri may or may not be his father; and an enigmatic young woman in a blue beret—who is almost certainly real.Maybe. As Prague itself becomes as perplexing and unpredictable as its transient inhabitants, Curt Leviant unfolds a labyrinthine tale that is both detective novel and love story, captivating maze and realistic fantasy, and a one hundred percent stunning tribute to Kafka and his city.

The Orthodox Jewish heroine of Hereville must save her sister from a malevolent magic fish in this “consistently clever” preteen graphic novel series (Kirkus).Welcome back to Hereville, where Mirka, the world's first time-traveling, monster-fighting Orthodox Jewish girl, faces her greatest challenge yet: babysitting! Mirka just wants to find new adventures, but instead she's stuck babysitting her disapproving little sister, Layele. When Mirka pushes her sister into a stream, they both get in too deep with an angry magic fish. No matter how hard Mirka fights this fish-out-of-water, it gets stronger and stronger—and it's out for revenge. Mirka is in over her head, and this time, her whole family is on the line! When the fish kidnaps Layele, Mirka must find a way to save her little sister, and the clues she needs are hidden in her stepmother Fruma's past. Mixing fantasy, adventure, cultural traditions, squabbling siblings, and preteen commotion, Hereville: How Mirka Caught a Fish is sure to captivate readers with its exciting visuals and indomitable heroine.

A Canadian detective looks into a wealthy lady's mysterious demise in “an entertaining read” (Library Journal). Thanks to a noisy toilet, Benny Cooperman is pulled into a new case—when he learns that his janitor's elderly girlfriend has died of hunger—despite having plenty of money. The question is why she couldn't get access to it, and Benny will find himself investigating a lot of unsavory characters to find out, in a novel by an Arthur Ellis Award winner “who can bring a character to life in a few lines” (Ruth Rendell). “Benny Cooperman, the low-key Grantham, Ontario, private eye who has as little success shushing his Jewish mother as getting Kogan, the janitor of his building, to fix the leaky hall toilet, agrees to a trade: If Kogan will deal with the plumbing, Benny will plumb the death of his pal Lizzy Oldridge, who died of starvation... Benny's a charmer.” —Kirkus Reviews “Benny Cooperman is one of the most enjoyable private eyes in crime fiction.” —The Toronto Star There Was an Old Woman is the eighth book in the Benny Cooperman Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

In the blank pages between Malachi and Matthew, the course of an entire nation was changed...His brother, the high priest Honiah, enjoyed the authority of the high priesthood, and all important decisions needed his approval. But it was Jason who was shaping the future of Jerusalem and, with it, all Judea. He breathed in again, imagining that he could feel the wave of destiny impelling him forward toward his vision as he exhaled...The Greeks have taken over the world, but Jerusalem is still the same backwater city Jason has always known. He wants to help his hometown rise to a new age of prosperity and influence. If that means stretching the terms of the city's divine covenant, so be it. But how far is he willing to go to achieve Greek greatness for this Jewish city? It will take the willingness of a handful of Jews to die rather than violate the covenant in order to turn the tide back to God.Written by an internationally recognized expert in the period between the Testaments, Day of Atonement invites readers into Judea during the tumultuous years leading up to the Maccabean Revolt. It was this pivotal decade that reminded Jews of the centrality of the covenant to their national security and taught them that the covenant was worth dying for. The story is so foundational, it is still told every year at Hanukkah. The lessons learned during this turbulent time also shed light on just what was at stake in the ministry of Jesus, whose radical message seemed to threaten the covenant once again.Day of Atonement joins the perennially successful novels Pontius Pilate and The Flames of Rome by renowned historian Paul Maier on Kregel's premier list of captivating and historically accurate biblical novels.

“Intimate, big-hearted, compassionate and clear-eyed, Brafman's novel turns secrets into truths and the truth into the heart of fiction.” —AMY BLOOM, author of Lucky Us and Away“From roots in one religious tradition, comes a tale of emotional redemption for all of us. Michelle Brafman's astonishing compassion for all human frailty infuses this story about the need for truth and the promise of forgiveness.” —HELEN SIMONSON, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand“Heartfelt and genuine, Washing the Dead never betrays the complicated truths of family and tradition.”— DAVID BEZMOZGIS, author of Natasha and Other Stories and The Betrayers“Like a Jewish Anne Lamott, Brafman reels you in with warmth, depth and heart.” —SUSAN COLL, author of The Stager and AcceptanceThree generations of women confront family secrets in this exquisitely wrought debut novel that examines the experience of religious community, the perilous emotional path to adulthood, and the power of sacred rituals to repair damaged bonds between mothers and daughters.

Extrait :'Couronne était la quatrième fille et le cinquième enfant de madame Riche, qui elle-même avait cinq sœurs et quatre frères, tous enfants légitimes d'un propriétaire marchand de bestiaux, et tous, à l'exception de madame Riche et de la famille de sa sœur aînée, plus près de l'indigence que de l'aisance.'

A sweeping epic of Israel from its founding to the Six-Day War, from the #1 NewYork Times-bestselling author: “Full of excitement.”—Entertainment Weekly From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Winds of War and The Caine Mutiny, this saga spans from 1948 to 1967, the early decades of the state of Israel as it fights for its life, outmatched and surrounded by enemies—the first of the two-part epic that concludes with The Glory. Zev Barak, Sam Pasternak, Don Kishote, and Benny Luria are all officers in the Israeli army, caught up in the sweep of history, fighting the desperate desert battles and meeting the larger-than-life personalities that shaped Israel's fight for independence. The four heroes, and the women they love, weave a compelling tapestry of individual destinies through a grand recounting of one nation's struggle against the odds. “Much of the dialogue is witty; the descriptions of back-channel diplomacy between the United States and Israel are fascinating and convincing.”—The New York Times Book Review “Solid historical research…fictional characters of Wouk's own invention rub shoulders with real-life historical figures like David Ben Gurion [and] Moshe Dayan.”—The Christian Science Monitor “Rich and satisfying…deftly portrays the human face of inhuman conflict.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer “An engrossing and often moving tale.”—Publishers Weekly

It's summer, 1963. Fourteen-year-old Liana travels to Jerusalem, accompanied by her older sister and larger-than-life mother. The trip takes her from a sheltered life in Westchester County, NY to the hot, bustling, and thoroughly confusing landscape of the Middle East, where Jewish and Arab cultures exist side by side in an uneasy truce. She soon drifts away from her colorful family and their over-the-top relatives, and starts a furtive, increasingly passionate, secret relationship with the runaway son of an American diplomat. Together, they abscond to neighboring Palestine, where they hide in an abandoned monastery, while a frantic search for the two missing youngsters gets under way on the other side of an increasingly hostile border.Both a deeply sensual story and a vivid depiction of a world growing increasingly fractured, Edges is a masterfully written triumph of nuanced storytelling.

Fantastic tales of demons and the Evil Eye, magical incantations, and powerful attractions abound in Enchantress, a novel that weaves together Talmudic lore, ancient Jewish magic, and a timeless love story set in fourth-century Babylonia. One of the most powerful practitioner of these mysterious arts is Rav Hisda's daughter, whose innate awareness allows her to possess the skills men lack. With her husband, Rava--whose arcane knowledge of the secret Torah enables him to create a “man” out of earth and to resurrect another rabbi from death--the two brave an evil sorceress, Ashmedai the Demon King, and even the Angel of Death in their quest to safeguard their people, even while putting their romance at risk. The author of the acclaimed Rashi's Daughters series and the award-winning Rav Hisda's Daughter: Apprentice has conjured literary magic in the land where “abracadabra” originated. Based on five years of research and populated with characters from the Talmud, Enchantress brings a pivotal era of Jewish and Christian history to life from the perspective of a courageous and passionate woman.

A “truly enjoyable” journey through one man's Jewish American experience by the #1 New York Times-bestselling authorof Marjorie Morningstar (Newsday). Israel David Goodkind is a minor bureaucrat in the Nixon White House, killing time in the office by writing the story of four generations of his large, sprawling Russian-Jewish immigrant family. As he recounts his brief stint in show business, his torrid affair with a showgirl, and his encounters with a hassled and distracted President Nixon, Goodkind also witnesses historical events firsthand—the Watergate scandal, the Yom Kippur War—and eventually finds his way back to his Jewish faith. Combining Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk's wildly comic streak with his deep respect for religious tradition, Inside, Outside is both one man's story and “a social comedy of Jewish-American life reaching from New York to Jerusalem and spanning much of the 20th century” (Publishers Weekly). “Extremely funny.”—The Wall Street Journal “Wouk reaffirms his position as one of the nation's eminent storytellers.”—Newsday “Wouk`s most significant work since The Caine Mutiny.”—Chicago Tribune “Generously stuffed with zestfully old-fashioned humor and sentiment.”—Kirkus Reviews

A gorgeous first novel that traces the courageous coming of age of a young Jewish woman under the influence of her parents'Holocaust experience, recorded in the fading photographs and film reels buried in her father's closet.

Neugenboren's fifth book--Sam's Legacy covers both the life of Sam, a down-on-his-luck gambler who is also dealing with the legacy of memories of his Jewish father and grandfather, and the story of Madison Tidewater, the Negro Baseball League's'Black Babe,'current janitor, and how their paths cross. The differences in how the two men resolve their loss of faith brings the novel together.

'An intimate glimpse into the lives of Jewish immigrants in the early 1900's.'— Jefferson State Community CollegeTen tales by a Jewish-American author of the early twentieth century offer timeless depictions of immigrants'struggles and dreams. Set in New York City's teeming Lower East Side, this lost masterpiece provides rich psychological portraits of mothers, daughters, and sisters as they attempt to find places in the New World. During her early childhood, Anzia Yezierska (c. 1880–1970) emigrated from Poland to New York City, where she worked in sweatshops by day and studied English at night. She drew upon her own experiences to write these stories as well as novels and screenplays focusing on issues of acculturation and assimilation. Hungry Hearts, which originally appeared in 1920, inspired a popular film and holds the historic distinction of being the first publication by a Jewish-American woman writer.

From Harold Brodkey come three remarkable stories about the brief lives of two women and the troubling appearance of an angel above Harvard UniversityConsidered by many to be among the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, Harold Brodkey created fiction that startled, provoked, and often confounded. These three novellas, told through the recollections of fictional alter ego, Wiley Silenowicz, serve as sterling examples of Brodkey's magnificent talent. In “Ceil,” Wiley imagines the mother he never knew, brilliantly reinventing the woman who died when he was a child of two, creating a parent both idealized and painfully real. In “Lila,” Wiley remembers his adoptive mother, an unloving and unlovable, self-involved woman, whose early death from cancer left a permanent void in his family. And in “Angel,”the book's remarkable closing piece, Wiley recalls a heavenly visitation that came to him and many others while studying at Harvard University, and which heralded a truth most difficult to bear. For lovers of literature who have yet to experience Brodkey's unique style, soaring language, and conceptual brilliance, Women and Angels is a marvelous introduction to an American master.

A young Hasidic Jew struggling to master the Talmud seeks his fortune amid the teeming streets of New York's Lower East Side. The energy formerly focused on his religious studies now turns in the direction of rising to the top of the business world, where he discovers the high price of assimilation.