What's New
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The Mom of a Trans Child Wrote a Beautiful New Rosh HaShanah Book
September 7, 2020
As the mother of a transgender child, Rabbi Ari Moffic knows that personal transformation is a key and beautiful part of who each of us is.
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Feminism, Female Protagonists, and Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives
May 18, 2020
To honor the uncounted women in the Book of Numbers and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the U.S. this year, Rabbi Carole Balin, Ph.D., has crafted an “alternative Book of Numbers” for her weekly Torah commentaries for Ten Minutes of Torah.
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For Mother's Day in Quarantine, I'm Revisiting Jewish Mother-Daughter Memoirs
May 6, 2020
For Mother’s Day this year, I’m revisiting memoirs that have provided comfort through their relatability over the years. My life isn’t exactly like those of my beloved memoir writers, but so many details and stories ring true, almost bringing me back to being in close proximity to my mom.
Social Justice Literature
Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen
By the time she was 3 years old, Jazz Jennings (not her original first name or her real last name) knew she was meant to be a girl. In her new book Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teenager, Jazz tells her story, including how she and her family became reality TV stars and outspoken advocates for transgender rights.
Children's Book Reviews
Bone Button Borscht
A tired beggar reaches a small town on a cold, wintery night, seeking food and a warm bed. When the poor locals are reluctant to assist, he promises to make a delicious soup from six bone buttons.
Book Reviews
Philip Roth: A Counterlife
Philip Roth (1933-2018), one of the most prolific and acclaimed authors in the history of American literature. He is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Man Booker International Prize. In his complicated private life, Roth was often an unhappy man. Ira Nadel’s comprehensive biography, Philip Roth: A Counterlife (Oxford University Press), draws connections between the seminal moments in Roth’s life and the characters and themes in his novels that
Contested Utopia: Jewish Dreams and Israeli Realities
Growing up in the years following the founding of the State of Israel, I, like so many of my generation, was taught that the new Jewish state was the fulfillment of a utopian dream: a Jewish homeland after almost 2000 years of exile. It would be a refuge for persecuted diaspora Jews and its governance guided by Jewish values. Our assumption was, and still is, that Israel would be a Jewish state, where Jews could
Those Who Are Saved
Very few Jews managed to escape the Holocaust and find refuge in the United States. In her novel Those Who Are Saved, Alexis Landau tells the story of Vera and Max, whose artistic talents and connections afforded them a new life in America without sacrificing the privileged lifestyle they enjoyed before the war. Not that their departure wasn’t fraught with anguish. When the war begins, Vera and Max are Russian Jewish emigres living a life
Jewish End-of-Life Care in a Virtual Age: Our Tradition Reimagined
The pandemic has changed every aspect of our lives, even the way we become ill and the way we die. We used to lie in the hospital surrounded by our family and friends. Now no one is allowed to be with us for fear of contagion. We used to be buried in a ceremony in which our friends participated in the shoveling and in which they lined up in two rows and gave us some
The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir
The Empathy Diaries is Dr. Sherry Turkle’s fascinating attempt to explore, as she explains, “how this personal story meshed with my professional journey” – and what an illustrious professional journey this dual sociologist and clinical psychologist has had! Dr. Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She has authored six books and edited three
Discussion Guides
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Night, A Memoir, by Elie Wiesel
Eliezar Wiesel was born in 1928 in the small Hungarian village of Sighet, in what is today Romania.
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Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Prior to its publication in Spring 2002, an excerpt of Everything Is Illuminated appeared in the New Yorker'sdebut-fiction issue.
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The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
The cover of Anita Diamant's extraordinary book reads, The Red Tent: A Novel. A more accurate description of her rich elaboration on the biblical narrative of Dinah would be The Red Tent: A Midrash.
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Mr. Sammler’s Planet, by Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, was born near Montreal in 1915 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents.
Learning
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Building a Serious Jewish Library
A young friend and former student of mine recently asked her Facebook network for suggestions as to what books she ought to buy as first steps in building a serious
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7 Elie Wiesel Books that Show the Range of His Influence
Most people know Elie Wiesel as the author of Night, one of the first published autobiographical accounts of what life was like inside Nazi concentration camps.
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How to Start a Social Justice Book Club
Reform Jews across North America come together in their own communities to read, explore and discuss social justice-themed books. RAC Reads provides thought-provoking stories and tools to get your family, congregation, and community talking about racial justice.
History
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First They Came for the Books
In his fascinating and eminently readable new book, Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books, Rabbi Mark Glickman reminds us that Jews have always relied on books as essential sinews, binding Jews to God, to each other, and to the rest of humanity, regardless of time or space.
Making Meaning of Tisha B’Av Through the Lens of Literature
When you have come into the land that the Eternal your God is giving to you as a heritage, and you have possessed it and settled there, you shall take
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A Dangerous Trend in World War II-Era Novels
I understand why Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction last month. It is a beautiful, captivating and moving story. Set in World
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Were Shakespeare's Plays Actually Written By a Jewish Woman?
William Shakespeare's name appears on many of play, but no evidence demonstrates that he actually wrote them. Could they have actually been written by Aemelia Bassano?