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Young adult Holocaust narratives aren’t too hard to find. Prisoner B-3087, Refugee, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are among the many novels striving to broach a challenging subject for a teen or tween audience. Because children and teens were profoundly impacted by the events leading up to and during World War II, sharing a story from their point of view is a natural entry point for a reader of the same age.

The U.S. and Israel, allies for more than 70 years, are sometimes at odds on specific policies and actions. Yaakov Katz’s new book Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power (St. Martin’s Press) details one such disagreement involving a high-stakes threat to Israel in 2007.

Hitler (Oxford University Press) is the definitive biography of Adolf Hitler. Despite its length, Longerich’s book is no ornamental “door stopper;” it is, rather, an “eye opener” that sets this book apart from those of many other Hitler biographers.

This books tells the story of the Papal State’s 300-year effort to forcibly convert the Jews of Rome to Catholicism. The officially sanctioned campaign included kidnapping youngsters, harsh incarceration, and mind manipulation.

Sarah Blake’s The Guest Book (Flatiron Books) spans three generations of an old-line Protestant family, the Miltons, whose manners and way of life represent what they believe to be the established and correct way of doing things.

Defining Israel: The Jewish State, Democracy, and the Law (HUC Press) is a dense, essential volume for anyone who wants to unpack the maze of documentation and thought at the heart of

Rabbi James Rudin reviews A Bookshop in Berlin, a story of survival and resilience, of human cruelty and human spirit.