Book Reviews

Eli Amir was 13 years old when his family left Baghdad for Israel in 1950. They spent their first seven years in Israel living in tents, and the trauma of that experience led him to devote his career to issues of immigrant absorption. In this semi-autobiographical novel, Amir recreates the

I remember a Christian colleague, who occupied an office next to mine, once asking me, "Why didn't the Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah?" I started to explain what life was like in Palestine in the first century of the Common Era—the harshness of the Roman occupation, the apocalyptic mood

While Krauss' novel contemplates the meaning of the "Great House," Burt Visotsky, professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary, elucidates the "Great Stories"—the legends of the rabbinic sages recorded in the Babylonian Talmud. With great charm and wit, Visotzky provides the tools for deciphering these stories—their

Nicole Krauss' novel, a National Book Award finalist, reminds me of Mahler's symphonies—complex, filled with borrowings, emotionally intense—and ultimately rewarding the reader's close attention. Less driven by plot than personality, this novel presents four unrelated individuals who attempt to explain their lives in the aftermath of a great loss. The

Many trials of Nazis and their collaborators were held following World War II—in the American and British-occupied zones of postwar Germany, in France (the trial of Vichy prime ministerPierre Lavel), and in Poland (the trials of concentration camp commandantsRudolf Höss and Amon Göth). Yet the first of the Nuremberg trials

Journalist and novelist Meir Shalev approaches the biblical text from the perspective of a secular Israeli with a great appreciation for and familiarity with the Hebrew Bible. Bringing a storyteller’s sensibilities and a keen eye for details to his reading of biblical stories, Shalev also expresses a deep annoyance with

David Bezmozgis, winner of the 2004 Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction for his story collection, Natasha, returns to the theme of Soviet Jewish immigration in his first full-length novel. The freeing of Soviet Jewry—a cause that captured the hearts and minds of American Jews—generally brings to mind the heroism

While Europe in the Middle Ages was characterized by an agrarian feudal economy, in the same period, the mostly Muslim-controlled lands surrounding the Mediterranean thrived on trade—from Spain to North Africa, Palestine, Persia, Yemen, and India. Ninety percent of the world’s Jews lived in Mediterranean communities, keeping in touch with

"Hammerin’ Hank" Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers was not the first Jew to play in the major leagues or the only one, but he was the first Jewish superstar in professional baseball.