The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered
A prism on a kitchen windowsill performs the miracle of fracturing sunlight into the complete spectrum, throwing rainbows on mundane surfaces, elevating them to something celestial and rare. Benjamin Taylor, in his compact and precise memoir, The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered (Penguin, 2017), performs the same miracle. His last year of childhood in Forth Worth, TX, explodes into multicolored fragments, illuminating intersecting themes from the Kennedy assassination to Taylor’s homosexuality and eventual diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome.
The Netanyahu Years
On November 21, 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu surpassed David Ben Gurion’s record of longest continuous service as prime minister of Israel. Though Netanyahu’s years in power have been marked by scandal and political intrigue, his popularity with the Israeli electorate over the past seven years has grown, allowing him to do practically anything he wants.
The Shoah Through Muslim Eyes
A Pakistan-born Muslim woman with a Ph.D. from a South African university who directs the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College, a New York City Catholic school, has written a pioneering and courageous book about the Shoah (Holocaust).
Muck: A Novel
In this re-telling of the life of Jeremiah, the second major prophet in the Hebrew Bible, Dror Burstein, an Israeli poet and novelist who teaches literature at Tel Aviv and Hebrew universities, interweaves all aspects of the modern world, including cell phones, fax machines, computers, and high-speed transit with the ancient Jerusalem in which the First Temple dominates the horizon. T
Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History
In Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History, Pini Dunner provides a series of bizarre stories describing how some Jews crashed through conventional guardrails of staid Jewish tradition and sped forward onto aberrant lanes of false messiahs, forgers of Passover Haggadot, rabbis searching for subversive religious meanings of Hebrew amulets, and an 18th-century British lord who converted to Judaism.
A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion
Tom Segev’s voluminous biography, A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, gives new meaning to the Latin phrase – carpe diem – seize the day. That is just what David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) did when he proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948.
Pain: A Novel
In Pain (Other Press) gifted writer Zeruya Shalev explores human pain amid heightened emotional awareness as the protagonist Iris finds herself in a second-chance love affair in middle age.
On the Other Hand: Ten Minutes of Torah - Korach: Sacred Disagreement
In this infamous parashah, Korach, a relative of Moses, argues with Moses, wondering why he can’t be the leader of the Israelites instead.
On the Other Hand: Ten Minutes of Torah - Chukat: When to Ask Why
Parashat Chukat contains the commandment of the red heifer, and it’s one that many people find puzzling. What should we think of the commandments that don’t have an explanation?
On the Other Hand: Ten Minutes of Torah - Balak: Songs of the Soul
This week, Rabbi Jacobs welcomes singer/songwriter Neshama Carlebach. They discuss Parashat Balak¸ which songs speak to their souls, and what it’s like to travel the world as a Jewish singer. Plus, she shares a melody about gratitude and moving forward from pain.