Introducing readers to the main character of a book is a crucial part of setting the stage for what is to follow. In Rules For Ghosting, the moving debut romance from Shelly Jay Shore, the reader is immediately clued into the fact that the main character is trans. While the POV is third person, we are deeply in Ezra’s head, and we are therefore able to see the cognitive dissonance produced by how he thinks of himself and how the world perceives him. It’s such a gentle slide we hardly notice it happening. Which is why I was so busy contemplating how unfair life can be that I barely noticed the ghosts.
I probably share that fact with Ezra. He’s worked or volunteered in the family funeral home since he was a small child, but after the death of his grandfather, when he began to see ghosts, Ezra has avoided the place he once loved. I don’t blame him. It’s got to be pretty creepy to realize the Zeidy you’ve been talking to for weeks is actually dead. Unfortunately, that’s not the biggest revelation in Ezra’s life. Within the first few chapters his mother has announced that she’s been having an affair with their Rabbi’s wife, there are outside funeral corporations looking to buy out the struggling family business, and Ezra’s job as a yoga teacher is yanked out from under him. Which means he’s stuck going back to work at the funeral parlor to make up for his mothers absence while trying to untangle the financial mess the family is in.
Weirder? One of the ghosts is following him around and it just so happens to be the dead husband of the guy Ezra is crushing on. Yikes.
The potential for dark humor and bizarre shenanigans is epic, and indeed Rules for Ghosting does have a very tongue in cheek side. These siblings can banter like nobody’s business- which is good because every family holiday celebration we witness (Passover, Lag B’aomer) is a straight up disaster. We are talking literal dumpster fires. But we also see a strong element of found family in Ezra’s personal life, and there are extremely poignant scenes. My personal favorite was when Ezra’s family goes out of their way to accommodate a funeral for a queer client and Ezra discovers they go that extra mile for everyone.
Almost as immediately as we understand Ezra’s dysphoria, we also understand his psychological needs. He has a hard time asking for help, low self esteem, and in general is keeping the massive secret of seeing ghosts from everyone in his life. Watching him move through the process of dealing with all that is like watching a rebirth, which is apt given his preferred job is working as a birth doula. (Side note, I enjoyed all the doula scenes but there was one tiny thing that really bothered me about how Ezra described his job to his roommates. Don’t get hung up on it – keep going, one of the doula scenes is truly fantastic).
The choices made to have readers so deeply immersed in Ezra’s head made his life and emotional landscape much more visceral to me. There’s enough drama to fill a soap opera for several seasons in these pages, but that wasn’t what pulled me in. I enjoyed learning about Ezra, working through his issues with him, and meeting the tidal wave of support he receives when he is finally ready to accept it. Rules For Ghosting is not a cozy or sweet romance- there’s high stakes and one very spicy sex scene – but I would still describe it as a comfort book that made me feel cozy and loved. This might be a book populated by the dead, but it is about the living and left me feeling more alive.
Memory is a tricky thing. Two people may recall the same incident in wildly different fashion. Some of us selectively focus on the good or the bad. Over time, it becomes a wonder anyone can bear to remember anything at all. Which is a problem for Fay, the main character in Emi Watanabe Cohen’s thoughtful sophomore Middle Grade fantasy Golemcrafters.
Fay has grown up somewhat in her older brother Shiloh’s shadow. Her one former friend has joined the group of girls that tease her for not being Japanese enough because her father is Jewish – calling her names like Anne Frank and laughing at her Japanese pronunciation and curly hair. She does well in some subjects but not in others, and generally feels lost. Meanwhile, Shiloh is dealing with an antisemitic bully who has now started beating him up for reporting antisemitic graffiti. The school is less than helpful about any of this. So when their grandfather from NY shows up offering to teach them golem craft, the siblings are eager to go on this adventure together.
As it turn out, Fay has a gift for making Golems. As creatures built from words and memories pressed into clay, they come easily to Fay who is hyperlexic and has an easier time with Hebrew than Shiloh. Her days are filled with sculpting, but at night she and Shiloh travel through shared dreams to a fantasy universe. Delighted to have found their own version of Narnia, they are confused as to why everything always ends in destruction and murder in these dreams. They hope to use Fay’s Golems to save the day but quickly learn that this isn’t so simple. The fantasy world is actually ancestral memories, and you cannot change centuries of antisemitic incidents no matter how much you want to.
Shiloh finds himself in the awkward situation of coming in second to his little sister. Meanwhile, Fay has all this power that she is afraid to use. As the superior Golem crafter, she experiences her ancestors memories much more acutely than Shiloh and struggles with when to fight vs. when to hide. It’s a conflict familiar to countless generations of Jews who have argued over how to best combat antisemitism only to realize that step one should probably be to stop blaming the victims in the first place. There’s a line about how Jewish children are not supposed to be storybook heroes that really hits home.
Watanabe Cohen is facile with languages and the wordplay with both Japanese and Hebrew is delightful. Furthermore she brings some much appreciated humor to a difficult topic. The Passover seder depicted was particularly funny and comes at a time when Fay needs some joy in her life.
Golemcrafters was obviously written before this year of rising antisemitism, but it feels timely nonetheless. Jewish kids today could use Fay and Shiloh’s perspective, their non-Jewish peers will benefit from learning to step outside their own experiences, and everyone supremely needs the reminder that Jews don’t all look alike and come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
BookishlyJewish received an e-copy of this book from the publisher
BookishlyJewish: I’m so excited to have you back! It seems like an eternity has passed since your last interview on the blog, when really I think it’s been about a year. I know that Kalyna the Cutthroat has just made its way into stores. What should readers prepare for when picking it up?
Elijah Kinch Spector: I’m happy to be back! Kalyna the Cutthroat is a queer (and yes, very Jewish) fantasy novel about con artistry, dark magic, and relying on mutual aid when systems fail us.
BookishlyJewish: Do you think people can jump right into Cutthroat, or should they first read Soothsayer if they haven’t already?
Elijah Kinch Spector: People can absolutely start with Cutthroat! Reading the first book will deepen someone’s understanding of certain aspects of the second, but each one is written to be a complete story that can stand on its own.
I wrote it that way in large part for new readers, but also because I would’ve gotten bored writing a sequel that hewed too close to the first one.
BookishlyJewish: In what ways does Cutthroat differ from Soothsayer? In what ways is it similar? Elijah Kinch Spector: First of all, the narrator is different! The first book was narrated by Kalyna herself, but in the second I wanted to show her from the outside. Show just how overpowering, and even scary, her con artistry can be to an observer. So I went for a Holmes and Watson dynamic. (Or probably more accurately, Raffles the Gentleman-Thief and Bunny.)
I also used the second book to explore locations that are discussed, but never seen, in the first book. Such as the other two fourths of the Tetrarchia: the cobbled-together country where both books are set.
This gave me a different angle on some of the same questions at the heart of Soothsayer, like who gets excluded from a national project. And, just like in the first book, I worked really hard to address those larger issues as part of a fun and exciting story!
BookishlyJewish: I have to know – is Grandmother still as awful?
Elijah Kinch Spector: Well, Kalyna’s grandmother actually isn’t in this book, but you could say she haunts it. Or perhaps looms over it. And I promise you: Grandmother was never the type to grow as a person.
BookishlyJewish: Has your creative process changed on writing a sequel? Any advice for writers feeling a slump on their second book?
Elijah Kinch Spector: It changed a lot! I wrote the first book on and off over ten years, scratching most of the first draft in notebooks on my lunch breaks. The second one, however, had a real timeline, and I soon realized that writing the first draft by hand would be too slow. But I needed a way to write that wouldn’t allow me to spend all day editing myself—would allow me to just barrel forward and get it done.
So I actually went to New York City’s last typewriter store and bought one from 1970 or so. Honestly? Worked great. That’s good advice… if you’re me, specifically.
BookishlyJewish: Now that Cutthroat is safely in the hands of its readers, do you have plans for your next project?
Elijah Kinch Spector: I do! But have to give you the annoying old, “I can’t talk about it yet.”
BookishlyJewish: Kalyna has always managed to surprise me, does she surprise you too when writing?
Elijah Kinch Spector: Honestly, yes. Writing her from an outside perspective for the first time, I was surprised (and a bit delighted) at how scary she could be. To people she’s conning, to people she’s helping, or to people she loves.
BookishlyJewish: If you had the opportunity to see the future, like Kalyna pretends she can, would you take it?
Elijah Kinch Spector: No thanks! My favorite novel in the entire world is Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo, and one of many things I love about it is this line from the end:
“Until the day when God deigns to unveil the future to mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: ‘wait’ and ‘hope.'”
BookishlyJewish: Any really fun or proud moments from your author journey you’d like to share?
Elijah Kinch Spector: The Soothsayer hardcover didn’t have a map (as you may remember). But we got one for Cutthroat, by Virginia Allyn, and it’s beautiful. I sent Erewhon the most amateurish scribble you’ve ever seen in your life, and what I got back was breathtaking. It made this world, which lives mostly in my head, feel real in an all new way.
BookishlyJewish: I always end by asking if you have a favorite Jewish book to recommend to our readers.
It tells the story of how Brager’s great grandparents—one of whom was a boxer!—escaped Nazi Germany, while interrogating the agreed upon family account and exploring the toll that telling these kinds of stories can take on us now. It’s also darkly funny and wonderfully drawn!
Octogenarians are definitely a group underrepresented in publishing. Books depict them as either cutesy eccentric side characters, sage advisors whose advice is usually ignored, or simply not at all. I get it. Publishing is a business and marketing teams worry about their ability to sell books featuring protagonist that aren’t as sexy as a twenty something. In fact, they’ll be even less likely to give a book a chance if the senior citizens involved commit the crime of actually having sec at their age. Thankfully, Lynda Cohen Loigman’s latest historical novel The Love Elixir Of Augusta Stern made it through, and she’s here to show you that retirement community’s have more drama than Melrose Place.
Yes, I realize that Melrose Place references are going to make some of my younger readers think I’m a senior citizen too. That’s OK. This is a review about acceptance of our fabulous selves at all ages, dated Melrose Place references included.
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern toggles between the 1980s when pharmacist Augusta is forced to retire and the 1920s when she was a young girl working in her fathers pharmacy by day and learning Jewish herbalism from her great aunt Esther by night. Augusta meets some surprise blasts from the past at her new retirement community, including Irving who readers will learn from the 1920s portion, is the man that broke her heart. She’s been single for the rest of her life.
The 1920’s bits are full of prohibition era Jewish mobsters, period detail about the kinds of products and services you could find in pharmacies, and also the wisdom of hundreds of years of Jewish women called witches when they solve problems that modern medicine cannot. Augusta feels forced to choose between pharmacy training – a rare opportunity for women in that era- and the gifts of her aunt Esther. While Augusta’s father shows a surprising amount of determination to champion his daughters ability to perform the job of a pharmacist just as well, if not better, than any man, he is vehemently opposed to Esther’s traditional herbal treatments and superstitions. These involve treatments my mother would call bubbie meises even as she forced us all to keep them ‘just in case’.
Things have improved by the 1980s, Augusta is not the only female pharmacist around, but they aren’t perfect. She actually has no desire to retire to sunny Florida. She’s forced to do so by a medical system that pushes her out due to her age, despite her continued stellar job performance.
Now let’s turn to our current day – I like to think Augusta would have been enthused about how many people mix modern medicine with traditions like herbalism, acupuncture, and meditative practice. But be honest – when I opened this review with the word ‘octogenarian’ what did you think? Were you excited to read a book about “old people”? Did you expect a story about finding one’s true love at any age? To laugh out loud and be held in suspense to the point of turning each page rapidly so as to find out how it all ends? Because The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern accomplishes all of those things and more, not in spite of the age of the protagonist but because of it.
I can only hope I’m as vigorous as Augusta when I turn eighty. Unlike her I am actually wishing I could retire sooner rather than later, and this action packed retirement community had me looking to move up that timeline. We need more Augusta’s in our lives and on our shelves. To remind us all that there’s beauty at every stage in life.
Note: BookishlyJewish received an arc of this book from the publisher after we asked them for one.
With one very notable exception, whenever a book is adapted into a movie or television show, I refuse to watch it unless I’ve already read the book. I also almost always prefer the book. So I haven’t yet watched The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem on Netflix. I’m not sure I ever will, but I literally inhaled the book.
The story follows multiple generations of women in a spaniol family living in Jerusalem from the Turkish occupation all the way through the founding of the modern state of Israel. To say they have difficult relationships with their mothers is an understatement larger than the Red Sea. The wheel of fortune turns faster than the sellers in Mahne Yehuda can talk, and we follow the family through both wealth and poverty. Underlying it all is a curse that seems to prevent the women from being loved by their spouses. This curse-follows-generations-of-women-in-a-family plot line seems to be a popular trope in Israeli literature, at least based on the Israeli novels in translation I stumbled upon in my local library when I was a kid. (I wish I remembered the names of those books). In fact, you can actually still find people today who perform the kind of livianos treatments with boiled lead that are mentioned in the book.
There’s a bit of framing where the story of the family is told to the youngest woman in the line who is seeking to piece together her own tumultuous relationship with her mother, but it is inconsistently used, and after the first third of the book largely abandoned. Confusingly it’s not a clean break – sometimes within the space of a few paragraphs the same character is referred to in the first person and then the third person without an explanation for the swapping of viewpoint. Once you move past it, things flow more easily until we return to first person narration for the last few pages.
In a book where the majority of the characters are Jewish, and mostly only associating with other Jews, the tension must also come from Jews. With the possible exception of Rachelika, the sister of the titular character, these people are extremely flawed. This means they’re also extremely human. Nuance is embraced in a way that is sadly becoming rarer and rarer these days. In addition to beautiful traditions like shabbat hamin, there is a patriarchy so strong that wives sometimes come off as glorified servants, and an Ashkenazi/Mizrahi divide so deep that a Mizrahi man falling for an Askenazi woman is taken as proof positive of her being Lilith incarnate. It’s historically accurate and eye opening.
The choice to focus on a Spaniol family is an intriguing one. Many people have tried to gloss over the fact that there were Jews- particularly Mizrahi families- living in the region well before the 1940’s. Some of these families were living there from before anyone can even remember and others were refugees that immigrated when they were violently evicted from the Arab and Spanish speaking countries where they were living. Their very existence is an inconvenient truth, much like the chapter on how the Ein Kerem neighborhood was once occupied by Arabs until the War of Independence when they fled and Jews took it over. Not to mention the chapters depicting the role that the British empire played in causing all of this strife, which their descendants seem to have buried in their collective memories. These stories are important. They need to be told. You can’t wrap a pretty bow around a complicated narrative just to make it fit your current world view. This family is messy and the world they lived in was even messier. I appreciated the allowance for them to be fully rounded rather than card board cut outs.
Looking back on that Netflix show, I think I probably will never watch it because when I google and see the casting choices, I’m wary. I don’t mind that they shrunk two sisters into one – that seems to be the common move in central casting to save money. More bothersome to me is that the actress chosen for the lead – who is indeed beautiful, and I’m sure a very talented actress- doesn’t have the green eyes and red hair so focused on in the book. Instead those physical characteristics were given to the Ashkenazi love interest who tears the family apart. One wonders if the casting director felt the need to go with someone who displayed stereotypical Mizrahi features – dark hair, dark eyes – to prevent audience confusion as to why a green eyed red head is speaking Ladino. All Ashkenazim looking blond and blue eyed and all sephardim presenting with tan skin and dark hair is one of the biggest misconceptions about Jews that exists in the general public and amongst our own communities. I loved that The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem book chose to show the full breath of these communities and push back against the stereotypes about who should look like what. Having lived in Mizrahi communities, I can tell you this is much more accurate than concluding a person with green eyes must be of German descent.
There is a commitment here to presenting the world as it is in reality, rather than the world we create in our heads to suit our own needs and prejudices. In fact, I’d argue this is one of the strongest messages in The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, as evidenced in the conclusion. Only when all the truths, including the inconvenient ones, are brought to light can we understand our histories and move forward to find resolution. Perhaps when everyone starts looking at their full pasts, rather than trying to find someone else to blame, there can be understanding, healing, and hope.
Writing with intent to traditionally publish is a long and tortuous journey. For every starry eyed, young person with a glossy write up in Publisher’s Marketplace detailing how they got a 6 figure deal at auction on their debut novel which they wrote in two months or less, there is an army full of writers with much more typical journeys – a few novels to sign with an agent, a round or seven on submission before one of their works receives a modest offer (sometimes with an agent switch in the middle there), and even more hard work and uncertainty before people consider them as having “broken out.” What typically separates a writer who is going to survive and a writer that gives up is not talent – it’s their friend group.
Alyson Richman’s new historical fiction The Time Keepers demonstrates how individuals across cultural barriers can come together over shared interests. The novel is told in several viewpoints – a 1979 suburban Irish housewife who married a Jewish man in NY, her teenage daughter, a Vietnam refugee caring for her orphaned nephew, and a war vet who cannot bear to return home thanks to the facial scarring he sustained in the war. At first it would seem like these people would make an unlikely peer group, yet over the course of the story we find them building a strong and lasting community of support around each other. At its center is the watch store that helps heal them all.
At first glance, my primary writing group would also not be people you’d throw together at a dinner party. Despite our very different backgrounds, through our shared interest in writing we have bonded and expanded each others lives. We support each other through this journey. I understand that querying, submission, and debuting are not exactly on par with the Vietnam War, but the everyday ways in which we connect remind me of the characters in the Time Keepers. Just as two characters bond over the similarities and cultural meanings in matzah ball soup and pho, I cannot reach for the jar of red boat fish sauce in my cabinet without thinking about my writing buddy who introduced me to it. As the characters strive to protect the children in their lives, I am reminded about how our group’s talk of pacing and one page plot summaries somehow drifted into the state of child care in various countries.
Human connection is possible across cultural and religious divides, because the human experience belongs to all of us. The Time Keepers reminds readers to reach out and form those connections, offer and receive support, despite initial hardship. After all, isn’t that what this entire reading and writing thing is about?
Welcome to the BookishlyJewish 2024 Hanukkah Gift Guide. In what we hope will become an annual tradition, we’ve rounded up some our favorite books in a variety of age groups and genres. While many of the books could fit several categories we tried our best not to repeat, and placed each book where we thought it would most easily find its readers. As always, there were more books that we wanted to include but didn’t have space for, so if you don’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to drop us a comment for a personalized rec!
OUR BIGGEST BOOKS
To start things off, we’re revealing which books drove the most traffic or interaction from our readers! Most categories will have a ‘reader’s fave’, but we thought these stats might be of interest.
Most Instagram Likes: EIGHT DATES AND NIGHTS by Betsy Aldredge
YA Romance
New Yorker Hannah Levin is allergic to exactly two things, horses and tinsel. Unfortunately, she’s surrounded by both when she’s snowed in at her grandmother’s home in a small Texas town.
who happens to be equal parts adorable and full of annoying, over the top festival of lights spirit that he’s determined to share with Hannah one itchy Hanukkah sweater at a time.
As the days pass—and a spectacularly memorable kiss following Noah’s made up game of truth or dare dreidel takes place—Hannah begins to wonder if maybe there’s more to Hanukkah than she thought.
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty—until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.
When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk—grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh—Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. She will face an impossible challenge and, along with two unlikely allies, uncover a secret that threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike.
Most Views in One Day: TO & FRO by Leah Hager Cohen
literary
Ani, journeying across a great distance accompanied by a stolen kitten, meets many people along her way, but her encounters only convince her that she is meant to keep searching. Annamae, journeying from childhood to young adulthood alongside her mother, older brother, and the denizens of her Manhattan neighborhood, never outgrows her yearning for a friend she cannot describe.
From their different worlds, Ani and Annamae reach across the divide, perhaps to discover—or perhaps to create—each other.
Told in two mirrored narratives that culminate in a new beginning, To & Fro unleashes the wonders and mysteries of childhood in a profound exploration of identity, spirituality, and community.
Most Reader’s Choice Votes: PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS by Dara Horn
Nonfiction
Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones.
In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the “righteous Gentile” Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present.
Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of “Never forget,” is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.
For all the littles in your life – the best gift is snuggling up listening to a good book.
New: THE MIDNIGHT MITZVAH by Ruth Horowitz, illustrated by Jenny Meilihove
Hanina Chipmunk’s favorite thing to do is gather nuts and share them with her hungry friends. But not everyone is thankful for her good deed. When Hanina realizes Mathilda Squirrel is embarrassed to admit she needs help, she hatches a plan to deliver nuts in secret under the midnight hour.
As a daytime animal venturing out at night, Hanina will need all the wits and bravery she has to complete her mitzvah
Hanukkah Themed: THE EIGHT KNIGHTS OF HANUKKAH by Leslie Kimmelman, illustrated by Galia Bernstein
It’s the last night of Hanukkah and everyone is doing their part for the big celebration, but a dragon called Dreadful has other ideas. He roams the countryside, interrupting the party preparations. Lady Sadie must call upon the Eight Knights of Hanukkah to perform deeds of awesome kindness and stupendous bravery and put an end to the dragon’s shenanigans.
When Dreadful eats all the special donuts the baker made, Sir Lily helps the baker make more sufganiyot. Sir Alex makes a young lad a new dreidel after Dreadful scorched his original one. And on the Knights go–but when they finally catch up to Dreadful, a funny surprise awaits them!
Classic: HERE IS THE WORLD by Leslea Newman and illustrated by Susan Gal
Beginning with the weekly observance of Shabbat, readers join a family through the holidays and the corresponding seasons.
From sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah to lighting the menorah for Chanukah to rattling a grogger for Purim, and on through the Jewish year, the joy and significance of each holiday beautifully come to life.
Reader’s Fave: HERSCHEL AND THE HANUKKAH GOBLINS by Eric Kimml, Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman
On the first night of Hanukkah, a weary traveler named Hershel of Ostropol eagerly approaches a village, where plenty of latkes and merriment should warm him.
But when he arrives not a single candle is lit. A band of frightful goblins has taken over the synagogue, and the villagers cannot celebrate at all! Hershel vows to help them. Using his wits, the clever trickster faces down one goblin after the next, night after night. But can one man alone save Hanukkah and live to tell the tale?
Ostensibly, these are for Middle Grade readers but we’ve known an adult or two to enjoy reading them as well!
New: THE COLOR OF SOUND by Emily Barth Isler
Twelve-year-old Rosie is a musical prodigy whose synesthesia allows her to see music in colors.
She’s never told anyone this, though. She already stands out more than enough as a musical “prodigy” who plays better than most adults. Rosie’s mom expects her to become a professional violinist. But this summer, Rosie refuses to play.
She wants to have a break. To make friends and discover new hobbies. To find out who she would be if her life didn’t revolve around the violin.
So instead of attending a prestigious summer music camp, Rosie goes with her mom to visit her grandparents. Grandma Florence’s health is failing, Grandpa Jack doesn’t talk much, and Rosie’s mom is furious with her for giving up the violin. But Rosie is determined to make the most of her “strike.” And when she meets a girl who seems distinctly familiar, she knows this summer will be unlike any other.
With help from a mysterious glitch in time―plus her grandparents, an improv group, and a new instrument―Rosie uncovers secrets that change how she sees her family, herself, and the music that’s always been part of her.
Hanukkah Themed: BENJI ZEB IS A RAVENOUS WEREWOLF by Deke Moulton
MG fantasy/paranormal
Benji Zeb has a lot going on. He has a lot of studying to do, not only for school but also for his upcoming bar mitzvah. He’s nervous about Mr. Rutherford, the aggressive local rancher who hates Benji’s family’s kibbutz and wolf sanctuary.
And he hasn’t figured out what to do about Caleb, Mr. Rutherford’s stepson, who has been bullying Benji pretty hard at school, despite Benji wanting to be friends (and maybe something more). And all of this is made more complicated by the fact that, secretly, Benji and his entire family are werewolves who are using the wolf sanctuary as cover for their true identities!
Things come to a head when Caleb shows up at the kibbutz one night . . . in wolf form! He’s a werewolf too, unable to control his shifting, and he needs Benji’s help. Can anxious Benji juggle all of these things along with his growing feelings toward Caleb?
Anya and the Dragon is the story of fantasy and mayhem in tenth century Eastern Europe, where headstrong eleven-year-old Anya is a daughter of the only Jewish family in her village. When her family’s livelihood is threatened by a bigoted magistrate, Anya is lured in by a friendly family of fools, who promise her money in exchange for helping them capture the last dragon in Kievan Rus.
This seems easy enough, until she finds out that the scary old dragon isn’t as old—or as scary—as everyone thought. Now Anya is faced with a choice: save the dragon, or save her family.
Reader’s Fave: REBECCA REZNIK REBOOTS THE UNIVERSE by Samara Shanker
MG fantasy
Rebecca Reznik is having a rough time. Her dad lost his job, and her parents are fighting all the time. Her obnoxious brother, Jake, is acting out even more than usual. And post–Bat Mitzvah Becca is expected to be grown up and spiritually mature—whatever that means—but in the wake of these upsets to her routine, she just feels frustrated and helpless.
Even worse, she’s starting to suspect that the awful vibes surrounding her house might be about more than family drama.
When Becca discovers a (not) Hanukkah goblin that’s turned her bedroom upside down, literally, she and her best friends Naomi and Eitan once again find themselves facing down demons from Jewish lore.
Armed with the lessons learned from her last tussle with mythological figures and the loyalty of her friends, Becca will do whatever it takes to defend her fractured family and save Hanukkah.
Want more Middle Grade? Check out our full list here.
Welcome to the YA selections! We consider the age categories pretty loose. Some middle graders are ready for these and some high schoolers may be ready for adult.
New: NIGHT OWLS by A.R. Vishny
YA fantasy
Clara loves rules. Rules are what have kept her and her sister, Molly, alive—or, rather, undead—for over a century. Work their historic movie theater by day. Shift into an owl under the cover of night. Feed on men in secret. And never fall in love.
Molly is in love. And she’s tired of keeping her girlfriend, Anat, a secret. If Clara won’t agree to bend their rules a little, then she will bend them herself.
Boaz is cursed. He can’t walk two city blocks without being cornered by something undead. At least at work at the theater, he gets to flirt with Clara, wishing she would like him back.
When Anat vanishes and New York’s monstrous underworld emerges from the shadows, Clara suspects Boaz, their annoyingly cute box office attendant, might be behind it all.
But if they are to find Anat, they will need to work together to face demons and the hungers they would sooner bury. Clara will have to break all her rules—of love, of life, and of death itself—before her rules break everyone she loves.
Hanukkah Themed: EIGHT NIGHTS OF FLIRTING by Hannah Reynolds
YA romance
Shira Barbanel has a plan: this Hanukkah, she’s going to get a boyfriend. And she has the perfect candidate in mind—her great-uncle’s assistant, Isaac. He’s reliable, brilliant, and of course, super hot. The only problem? Shira’s an absolute disaster when it comes to flirting.
Enter Tyler Nelson, Shira’s nemesis-slash-former-crush. As much as she hates to admit it, Tyler is the most charming and popular guy she knows. Which means he’s the perfect person to teach her how to win Isaac over.
When Shira and Tyler get snowed in together at Golden Doors, they strike a deal—flirting lessons for Shira in exchange for career connections for Tyler. But as Shira starts to see the sweet, funny boy beneath Tyler’s playboy exterior, she realizes she actually likes hanging out with him. And that wasn’t part of the plan.
Amidst a whirl of snowy adventures, hot chocolate, and candlelight, Shira must learn to trust her heart to discover if the romance she planned is really the one that will make her happiest.
Classic: IT’S A WHOLE SPIEL edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman
YA anthology
A Jewish boy falls in love with a fellow counselor at summer camp. A group of Jewish friends take the trip of a lifetime. A girl meets her new boyfriend’s family over Shabbat dinner. Two best friends put their friendship to the test over the course of a Friday night.
A Jewish girl feels pressure to date the only Jewish boy in her grade. Hilarious pranks and disaster ensue at a crush’s Hanukkah party.
From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It’s a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be. You will fall in love with this insightful, funny, and romantic Jewish anthology from a collection of diverse Jewish authors.
Reader’s Fave: TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW by Rachel Lynn Solomon
YA romance
Today, she hates him.
It’s the last day of senior year. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been bitter rivals for all of high school, clashing on test scores, student council elections, and even gym class pull-up contests.
While Rowan, who secretly wants to write romance novels, is anxious about the future, she’d love to beat her infuriating nemesis one last time.
Tonight, she puts up with him.
When Neil is named valedictorian, Rowan has only one chance at victory: Howl, a senior class game that takes them all over Seattle, a farewell tour of the city she loves. But after learning a group of seniors is out to get them, she and Neil reluctantly decide to team up until they’re the last players left—and then they’ll destroy each other.
As Rowan spends more time with Neil, she realizes he’s much more than the awkward linguistics nerd she’s sparred with for the past four years. And, perhaps, this boy she claims to despise might actually be the boy of her dreams.
This is one of a few adult categories – since we’ve designated an entire section for the Hanukkah romance. We know we could’ve gone even further and broken up more categories, but that’s what the full listing is for.
New: FLIRTY LITTLE SECRET by Jessica Lepe
adult romance
School counselor Lucy Galindo has a secret.
To her coworkers, friends, and even family, she’s shy, sweet, and constantly struggling to hold off disaster (read: manage her anxiety and depression). But online? She’s bold, confident, and always knows what to say—it’s how she’s become the wildly popular @TheMissGuidedCounselor.
It’s also why she keeps her identity anonymous. Her followers would never trust the real Lucy with their problems.
History teacher Aldrich Fletcher thought a new job would give him some relief from his drama-filled family. Instead, he’s dodging his ex-girlfriend and pining over his new co-worker—who only ever seems to see him at his worst. Thankfully, he can count on his online confidant for advice . . . until he discovers @TheMissGuidedCounselor is Lucy.
Now Fletcher has a secret too. And while Lucy can’t deny there’s something between them, she’s not sure she can trust him. Can they both find the courage to share the truth and step out from behind their screens?
Hanukkah Themed: DEADLINES, DONUTS, & DREIDELS by Jennifer Wilck
adult romance
Journalist Jessica Sacks’s career is on the line if she doesn’t ace this next assignment. She must interview firefighter Thomas Carville, Browerville’s celebrated hero—and her forever crush since childhood. When Jessica returns home for Hanukkah, handsome Thomas takes her breath away. And rudely shuts her down when she asks for an interview.
Thomas knows he and the man he saved are both lucky to be alive, regardless of his actions. And now Jessica is poking into his business. Thomas would rather kiss her under the mistletoe than answer her questions. But his priority is protecting his sobriety and his secret. They’re as far apart as Christmas and Hanukkah, but even their differences can’t trump the power of love.
It’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.
Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.
When Helen is summoned by a former student to view a cache of newly discovered seventeenth-century Jewish documents, she enlists the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents’ scribe, the elusive “Aleph.”
Want more adult fiction? Check out our full listing.
It wouldn’t be a Hanukkah Gift Guide if we left out the Hanukkah romance! Do not despair when walking past the red and green ‘holiday’ romance tables which contain pretty much nothing but Christmas. These Jewish authors have got your back!
New: EIGHT NIGHTS TO WIN HER HEART by Miri White
adult romance
Andie Williams is not looking forward to spending her first Chanukah alone after her father’s death. About to lose her job, with her only prospect across the country for another work opportunity, she could use some chutzpah to make it through the eight nights alone.
Leo Dentz has had a crush on the girl across the hall from his apartment for years but has never had the courage to say anything—until she drops her grocery bags and he notices her drug store Chanukah candles. Ready to take a chance outside of his comfort zone, Leo offers to join Andie on the first night, sharing his dinner with her.
Sheldon Soleskin should be having a horrible day. Even though he’s been unexpectedly transferred to a new school right before the holidays, has only one day to set up his new classroom, and just discovered his twin sister’s been hiding an invitation to his ex-boyfriend’s Christmas Eve wedding, he’s still ready to take on the world with a smile on his face and a skip in his step.
Theo Berenson just wants to be left alone to his custodial duties. But when the chipper new first-grade teacher needs help moving furniture the Sunday after Thanksgiving, he’s forced to do something he detests. Help. To make matters worse, Theo’s overbearing parents are coming for Hanukah in a few weeks, and he’s told them he has a boyfriend. Except he doesn’t. Because who would want to date an oaf like Theo?
Working together, these opposites discover they might be able to help each other out. Agreeing to be each other’s dates, they become friends as they practice for their upcoming events. But when all the rehearsing starts feeling a little too real, and both men’s pasts come roaring back to haunt them, will they be able to pull off the ultimate holiday masquerade?
Sarah Goldman loves Hanukkah, and she’s thrilled to be appointed as vice chair of the Hollowville Hanukkah Festival. So when the festival is threatened with cancellation, she comes up with an idea: a new slogan and advertising campaign topped off with a metal menorah large enough to fill the center of town. But even though her heart and dreams are large, the committee’s budget constraints threaten to stop her grand plans right in their tracks.
Famous metal sculptor Isaac Lieberman also loves Hanukkah. But his vision of a perfect Hanukkah isn’t a commercial community event—it’s spending time with family, following age-old traditions. He’s not interested in the festival, no matter how many times his grandmother, his bubbe, asks him to contribute one of his sculptures.
Then Sarah comes tumbling into his life…can she change his mind about more than just the holidays?
Work-obsessed Nora Ruben is tired of playing by all the rules. Especially when no one else seems to be. When her boss delivers grim news – at the company “holiday” party, of all places – she’s done being the model employee.
At least for one night – the night of the Matzo Baller, her friend’s famed Hanukkah harbor cruise around Manhattan. And if the cute co-worker from the suburban office is along for the ride? All the better.
She has just one condition: no work talk, from sundown to sunrise.
Alex Beckman has never quite found where he fits in his family’s business. And he never wanted to take the lead on a major acquisition, especially of a company he knows nothing about. But when he’s sent to reduce the staff by half – and finds sexy, whip-smart Nora Ruben at the top of the list – he’s determined to dig deeper. It helps that she assumes he’s just a fellow comrade in the cubicles. When Nora invites him to ditch the party for the cruise, this nice Midwestern Jewish boy jumps at the chance…
But when eight hours on a boat turns into an amazing weekend together…firing Nora is the last thing on Alex’s mind. Will their Hanukkah hook-up confirm his worst fears about the future of his family business – or be the beginning of something miraculous?
We couldn’t resist breaking out one more genre – because it’s one of your faves! Here are some science fiction and fantasy recs for all ages. Together we think they show how versatile the genre can be as a means of interpreting Jewish culture and lore.
New: LADY EVE’S LAST CON by Rebecca Fraimow
adult SFF
Ruth Johnson and her sister Jules have been small-time hustlers on the interstellar cruise lines for years. But then Jules fell in love with one of their targets, Esteban Mendez-Yuki, sole heir to the family insurance fortune. Esteban seemed to love her too, until she told him who she really was, at which point he fled without a word.
Now Ruth is set on revenge: disguised as provincial debutante Evelyn Ojukwu and set for the swanky satellite New Monte, she’s going to make Esteban fall in love with her, then break his heart and take half his fortune. At least, that’s the plan. But Ruth hadn’t accounted for his older sister, Sol, a brilliant mind in a dashing suit… and much harder to fool.
Sol is hot on Ruth’s tail, and as the two women learn each other’s tricks, Ruth must decide between going after the money and going after her heart.
Spunky, strong-willed eleven-year-old Mirka Herschberg isn’t interested in knitting lessons from her stepmother, or how-to-find-a-husband advice from her sister, or you-better-not warnings from her brother. There’s only one thing she does want: to fight dragons!
Granted, no dragons have been breathing fire around Hereville, the Orthodox Jewish community where Mirka lives, but that doesn’t stop the plucky girl from honing her skills. She fearlessly stands up to local bullies. She battles a very large, very menacing pig.
And she boldly accepts a challenge from a mysterious witch, a challenge that could bring Mirka her heart’s desire: a dragon-slaying sword! All she has to do is find—and outwit—the giant troll who’s got it!
In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family’s social position.
What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England’s heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king’s favor.
Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the lines between magic, science, and fraud are never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition’s wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.
Reader’s Fave: THE POMGREANATE GATE by Ariel Kaplan
Adult Science Fiction
Toba Peres can speak, but not shout; sleep, but not dream. She can write with both hands at once, in different languages, but she keeps her talents hidden at her grandparents’ behest.
Naftaly Cresques sees things that aren’t real, and dreams things that are. Always the family disappointment, Naftaly would still risk his life to honor his father’s last wishes.
After the Queen demands every Jew convert or face banishment, Toba and Naftaly are among thousands of Jews who flee their homes. Defying royal orders to abandon all possessions, Toba keeps an amulet she must never take off; Naftaly smuggles a centuries-old book he’s forbidden to read. But the Inquisition is hunting these particular treasures–and they’re not hunting alone.
Toba stumbles through a pomegranate grove into the mirror realm of the Mazik: mythical, terrible immortals with an Inquisition of their own, equally cruel and even more powerful. With the Mazik kingdoms in political turmoil, this Inquisition readies its bid to control both realms.
In each world, Toba and Naftaly must evade both Inquisitions long enough to unravel the connection between their family heirlooms and the realm of the Mazik. Their fates are tied to this strange place, and it’s up to them to save it.
Everyone loves having a shiny seal of recognition on their gift, and Jewish books have won just about every award there is. Check out these award winning books!
Middle Grade: THE INQUISITOR’S TALE by Adam Gidwitz illustrated by Hatem Aly
1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon.
On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints.
Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne’s loyal greyhound, Gwenforte . . . recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together.
A Newbery Honor Book Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award
★ A New York Times Bestseller ★ A New York Times Editor’s Choice ★ A New York Times Notable Children’s Book ★ A People Magazine Kid Pick ★ A Washington Post Best Children’s Book ★ A Wall Street Journal Best Children’s Book ★ An Entertainment Weekly Best Middle Grade Book ★ A Booklist Best Book ★ A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book ★ A Kirkus Reviews Best Book ★ A Publishers Weekly Best Book ★ A School Library Journal Best Book ★ An ALA Notable Children’s Book
Young Adult: WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY by Sacha Lamb
YA historical fantasy
Uriel the angel and Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) are the only two supernatural creatures in their shtetl (which is so tiny, it doesn’t have a name other than Shtetl). The angel and the demon have been studying together for centuries, but pogroms and the search for a new life have drawn all the young people from their village to America. When one of those young emigrants goes missing, Uriel and Little Ash set off to find her.
Along the way the angel and demon encounter humans in need of their help, including Rose Cohen, whose best friend (and the love of her life) has abandoned her to marry a man, and Malke Shulman, whose father died mysteriously on his way to America. But there are obstacles ahead of them as difficult as what they’ve left behind. Medical exams (and demons) at Ellis Island. Corrupt officials, cruel mob bosses, murderers, poverty. The streets are far from paved with gold.
Stonewall Book Award Winner – Sydney Taylor Award Winner – Michael L. Printz Honor Book – National Jewish Book Award Finalist – AudioFile Earphones Award Winner
BEST OF THE YEAR NPR · New York Public Library · Kirkus
Adult: THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORES by James McBride
adult literary
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE Find It: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review
Nonfiction: THE BOOK OF JEWISH FOOD by Claudia Roden
cookbook
The Book of Jewish Food traces the development of both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish communities and their cuisine over the centuries. The 800 magnificent recipes, many never before documented, represent treasures garnered by Roden through nearly 15 years of traveling around the world. Includes 50 photos & illustrations.
WINNER OF THE JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION COOKBOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
Non fiction always prominently features on gift wish lists. Good for reading on the commute or on the couch!
New: MY NAME IS BARBRA by Barbra Streisan
autobiography
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture.
In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
Holiday Themed: MY JEWISH YEAR by Abigail Pogrebin
memoir
Although she grew up following some holiday rituals, Pogrebin realized how little she knew about their foundational purpose and contemporary relevance; she wanted to understand what had kept these holidays alive and vibrant, some for thousands of years. Her curiosity led her to embark on an entire year of intensive research, observation, and writing about the milestones on the religious calendar.
Classic: ONE REPENTANCE AND REPAIR by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
American culture focuses on letting go of grudges and redemption narratives instead of the perpetrator’s obligations or recompense for harmed parties. As survivor communities have pointed out, these emphases have too often only caused more harm. But Danya Ruttenberg knew there was a better model, rooted in the work of the medieval philosopher Maimonides.
For Maimonides, upon whose work Ruttenberg elaborates, forgiveness is much less important than the repair work to which the person who caused harm is obligated. The word traditionally translated as repentance really means something more like return, and in this book, returning is a restoration, as much as is possible, to the victim, and, for the perpetrator of harm, a coming back, in humility and intentionality, to behaving as the person we might like to believe we are.
Maimonides laid out five steps: naming and owning harm; starting to change/transformation; restitution and accepting consequences; apology; and making different choices. Applying this lens to both our personal relationships and some of the most significant and painful issues of our day, including systemic racism and the legacy of enslavement, sexual violence and harassment in the wake of #MeToo, and Native American land rights, On Repentance and Repair helps us envision a way forward.
After a decade as a political speechwriter—serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign—Sarah Hurwitz decided to apply her skills as a communicator to writing a book . . . about Judaism. And no one is more surprised than she is.
Hurwitz was the quintessential lapsed Jew—until, at age thirty-six, after a tough breakup, she happened upon an advertisement for an introductory class on Judaism. She attended on a whim, but was blown away by what she found: beautiful rituals, helpful guidance on living an ethical life, conceptions of God beyond the judgy bearded man in the sky—none of which she had learned in Hebrew school or during the two synagogue services she grudgingly attended each year. That class led to a years-long journey during which Hurwitz visited the offices of rabbis, attended Jewish meditation retreats, sat at the Shabbat tables of Orthodox families, and read hundreds of books about Judaism—all in dogged pursuit of answers to her biggest questions. What she found transformed her life, and she wondered: How could there be such a gap between the richness of what Judaism offers and the way so many Jews like her understand and experience it?
Sarah Hurwitz is on a mission to close this gap by sharing the profound insights she discovered on everything from Jewish holidays, ethics, and prayer to Jewish conceptions of God, death, and social justice. In this entertaining and accessible book, she shows us why Judaism matters and how its message is more relevant than ever, and she inspires Jews to do the learning, questioning, and debating required to make this religion their own.
Cookbooks are excellent gifts, and also some of our favorite books! So we pulled a few of these special for the gift guide.
New: COME HUNGRY by Melissa Ben-Ishay
In Come Hungry, Melissa shares her favorite everyday recipes and tips for creating nourishing, delicious meals the whole family will love. With flavorful ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions, Melissa encourages home cooks of all levels to cook outside of their comfort zones and reveals her go-to techniques for creating the perfect bite. Packed with colorful, craveable recipes, Come Hungry offers a wide range of simple dishes for any diet.
Sephardic Cooking: AROMAS OF ALEPPO by Poopa Dweck
When the Aleppian Jewish community migrated from the ancient city of Aleppo in historic Syria and settled in New York and Latin American cities in the early 20th century, it brought its rich cuisine and vibrant culture. Most Syrian recipes, however, were not written down and existed only in the mind of older cooks.
Poopa Dweck, a first generation Syrian-Jewish American, has devoted much of her life to preserving and celebrating her community’s centuries-old legacy.
In Aromas of Aleppo, Dweck places the Aleppian Jewish cuisine in historical and cultural context, offers 150 exciting ethnic recipes with tantalizing photos, and describes the unique customs that the Aleppian Jewish community observes during holidays and lifecycle events.
Classic: SPICE AND SPIRIT edited by Tzuvia Emmer and Tzipora Reitman
Keeping kosher and celebrating the Jewish holidays receive an added, joyful dimension, with practical guidelines interwoven with spiritual insights into many aspects of Jewish life and observance. Recipes range from traditional favorites such as blintzes and chicken soup to Szechuan chicken, aduki-squash soup and many other international, gourmet and natural specialties. All in a clear, easy-to-use format with helpful symbols and numerous charts and illustrations.
Reader’s Fave: LOAVES OF TORAH by Rabbi Vanessa M. Harper
Braided and spiral loaves of challah have long been a delicious centerpiece of the Jewish table, but with a few extra twists, the beloved Shabbat bread can become a work of art that teaches Torah.
In Loaves of Torah, Rabbi Vanessa M. Harper—creator of the hit Instagram account @lechlechallah—shapes interpretive challot for each weekly Torah portion and Jewish holiday. A creative journey through the Jewish year, the book pairs gorgeous color photographs with insightful commentary, in-depth questions for reflection and discussion, as well as beautiful kavanot. Rabbi Harper also includes blessings, recipes, and tips for creating your own interpretive challot. A fresh, contemporary commentary on our holiest text, Loaves of Torah will inspire you to think outside the braid and take Torah into your own hands.
We love our books, but we also love our book accessories! If you aren’t sure what the bookworm on your list has already read, or what their tastes are, these suggestions can still provide the perfect gift.
Snappy book totes are the best! You can use them to carry books, groceries, or your overnight gear. I particularly enjoyed the “Sorry, I’m all booked up” version of totes.
Nobody wants crimped and folded edges. These bookmarks keep your place, have magnets to prevent them from slipping or falling out, and have personalization.
Embossers are a fantastic gift for book lovers, but also people who want to stamp all their recipes, or thank you cards. I have given them at everything from bridal showers to Hanukkah.
We wanted to end by pulling out some of our favorite books from this year. Check them out, they are well worth the read.
CHUTZPAH GIRLS by Julie Esther Silverstein and Tami Schlossberg Pruwer
MG, but really all ages!, nonfiction
Embark on an extraordinary journey to discover the stories of daring Jewish women, past and present, who triumphed over darkness and went on to create a brighter world.
From Abigail to Zivia, Chutzpah Girls come from diverse communities across the globe with powerful stories to awaken your Jewish pride, inspire you to explore your heritage, and, despite the odds, dream bigger than ever before. Includes 100 original portraits by Jewish female artists worldwide.
Natalya Fox has twenty-four hours to make the biggest choice of her life: stay home in NYC for the summer with her dad (and finally screw up the courage to talk to the girl she’s been crushing on), or spend it with her basically estranged mom in LA (knowing this is the best chance she has to fix their relationship, if she even wants to.) (Does she want to?)
How’s a girl supposed to choose?
She can’t, and so both summers play out in alternating timelines – one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the girl she’s always wanted. And one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the guy she never saw coming.
Kalyna’s family has the Gift: the ability to see the future. For generations, they traveled the four kingdoms of the Tetrarchia selling their services as soothsayers. Every child of their family is born with this Gift—everyone except Kalyna.
So far, Kalyna has used informants and trickery to falsify prophecies for coin, scrounging together a living for her deteriorating father and cruel grandmother. But Kalyna’s reputation for prophecy precedes her, and poverty turns to danger when she is pressed into service by the spymaster to Rotfelsen.
Kalyna is to use her “Gift” to uncover threats against Rotfelsen’s king, her family held hostage to ensure her good behavior. But politics are devious; the king’s enemies abound, and Kalyna’s skills for investigation and deception are tested to the limit. Worse, the conspiracy she uncovers points to a larger threat, not only to Rotfelsen but to the Tetrarchia itself.
Kalyna is determined to protect her family and newfound friends, but as she is drawn deeper into palace intrigue, she can no longer tell if her manipulations are helping prevent the Tetrarchia’s destruction—or if her lies will bring about its prophesized downfall.
THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN by Lynda Cohen Loigman
adult historical
Remarkably Bright Creatures
On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs―an active senior community in southern Florida―she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy―and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.
As a teenager growing up in 1920’s Brooklyn, Augusta’s role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta’s mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta can’t help but be drawn to Esther’s curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon’s customers her own advice―unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions.
As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther’s enchantments forever.
Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it’s too late?
BookishlyJewish: Night Owls was such a fun book, can you talk about the inspiration behind it?
A.R. Vishny: For me the starting point was place. I lived in the East Village in law school, at one point about a block over from the real-life cinema that inspired The Grand Dame, Village East by Angelika. That neighborhood (like all of New York City) has a lot of very interesting history that’s hiding in plain sight, it makes a great haunt for ghosts and supernatural creatures.
I started brainstorming in 2021 at the point when all the good things about NYC were still shuttered because of the pandemic. That setting was a natural choice because in that moment, I wanted to be enjoying the movie theaters, restaurants, bakeries, and other cultural life of that neighborhood, instead of being trapped in my apartment. That became the guiding philosophy of this project: I was going to center the things I love and the history I find interesting, and pack as much of that into the book as possible, so that the finished product would be the kind of YA book that I as a reader would have been obsessed with.
BookishlyJewish: Most people have never heard of an estrie before, when did you first encounter these mysterious owl women, and when did you know you would write a book about them?
A.R. Vishny: I first heard about them at a talk Rena Rossner gave at the Highlights Jewish Symposium, back in 2019. I was enamored with the idea of Jewish vampires as someone who came of age during the first wave of YA vampires. Specifically, the detail that caught my attention was the fact that for Estries, their power is literally tied up in their hair, and that they can fly when they let their hair down. A lot of my Jewish feelings are tied up in my hair (which is very thick and curly and kind of stereotypically what people imagine when they hear “Jewish hair”), so the idea that it might be a source of supernatural abilities was instantly appealing. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the idea then, so I filed that away until I could come back to it for the right project.
BoookishlyJewish: It’s clear you have a passion for Yiddish theater, even though you most definitely were not around for its glory days. How did that happen?
A.R. Vishny: Oh yeah…totally….err…wasn’t there for that…*tightens messy bun, hides bag of challah and salt*
In all seriousness though, I have always been a theater nerd, but my first encounters with Yiddish theater actually date back to a couple of courses I took in undergrad on the history of Jews in comic books and graphic novels. The professor I had for both courses emphasized the importance of Yiddish theater for understanding Jewish comic book history, that their histories and legacies were linked. In that class, we watched pieces of the Yiddish plays that were adapted to film and I loved them, particularly The Dybbuk and Yidl Mitn Fidl. Once I moved to NYC, I had access to and started taking advantage of the endless amount of live theater, including Yiddish theater and Yiddish-theater-adjacent work. I am a huge fan of the work of Folksbiene, the Yiddish theater company based out of the Museum of Jewish Heritage and which perhaps most notably was the company behind the recent Fiddler on the Roof Yiddish adaptation. I also am obsessed with Indecent, Paula Vogel’s play chronicling the history of Got Fun Nekome, or “God of Vengeance,” a Sholem Asch play that featured the first romantic same-sex kiss on a Broadway stage when it was performed there in 1922 (and immediately shut down on charges of “indecency”). But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, there’s a lot of people doing really interesting work today in Yiddish live performance and I highly recommend seeking it out, supporting that work, and when possible seeing those performances live.
I think people who aren’t super familiar with it might hear “Yiddish theater” and think sentimental shtetl kitsch, but the actual Yiddish theater scene at its peak was large and as varied as Broadway is today, and seeing Yiddish performed makes that history come alive in a way that just reading about it can’t.
BookishlyJewish: I particularly enjoyed the brief flashbacks as well as the snippets focusing on the Grand Dame theater as a person. Were these always part of the story, or did they get added later?
A. R. Vishny: Very early on, I wrote out Clara’s interstitial, originally for myself because I needed to have a solid idea of what I considered the “rules” of Estries in the universe I was building. I quickly realized that I really liked what I wrote, and that including that piece would be one way I could convey and reinforce the world-building in the text, which I thought would be one of the hardest things to make work, because Estries are particularly obscure and most people don’t have any pre-existing context for them. The other interstitials soon followed, and each time I found it was a way to incorporate the history and context I needed without overwhelming readers with exposition and (I hope) gave the story an overall sense of rootedness.
BookishlyJewish: What’s it like having your debut book out in the world? Any surprises?
A.R. Vishny: It’s wild having a thing that just lived inside my head for so long out in the world and available for other people to read and interact with.
As a debut, it’s seriously delightful when anyone takes a chance on the book and buys it. I’ve loved getting to share it with readers, and seriously I’m always surprised and delighted when someone likes and responds well to what I’ve written (as someone…err…very prone to self-doubt and assuming the worst).
BookishlyJewish: Boaz in particular is hilarious (or at least he was to me), was there a challenge in writing these different POVs and finding the right voice for each?
A.R. VIshny: Making sure all the characters felt emotionally authentic, distinct, and readable was a challenge, as was keeping the “who knows what when” of it all straight. For Clara and Molly, the biggest challenge was the fact that they’re not human, finding the balance between conveying their age and hungers without making things weird wasn’t easy. Then, on top of it, there was a lot of history, Jewish cultural context, and other info I wanted to get across while not sacrificing pace, so in any given chapter there were a lot of different considerations to juggle.
For Boaz, the challenges were slightly different. Unlike Clara and Molly, he’s human and only has 18 years of life experience, not 150+. On the other hand, we’re different people, and among other things I’m not a teenage boy and I’m not Syrian. Some of the solution was to give him a lot of other things in common with me so that I’d still have natural pathways into his voice (that’s partly why, like me, he has an Israeli dad and an American mom) and some of it was drawing on other family members, research, and working with a sensitivity reader. Boaz probably changed the most dramatically between revisions as I tried to suss out exactly who he was and needed to be for the story to work (at one point, he was actively hunting Clara from the start and even had an older brother he was trying to avenge, he was a totally different character), but once I landed on his sense of humor and the right backstory, he became one of the easiest character voices for me to slip into.
BookishlyJewish: If Hila and the Dead was an actual reality TV show, would you watch it? And if not, what would you rather see on TV?
A.R. Vishny: Hah, on the one hand I’m a scaredy cat (especially when it comes to scary tv and movies, I’m more comfortable reading spooky stuff). On the other hand, I appreciate a great Bravo show and Hila is very cool. I’d maybe watch it in the middle of the day with all the lights on.
BookishlyJewish: Any advice for writers just starting out?
A.R. Vishny: I sometimes come across Jewish writers who see Jewish specificity and commercial viability as opposing goals. This always really upsets me, because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Publishing is hard and unfair and endlessly frustrating, but if you never even try to write the book because you think it’s “too Jewish” to sell, of course it’ll never sell. You only have a chance if you try.
Moreover, specificity is important. Specificity is how you tell a “universal” story, because every single person on the planet has a life defined by the endless specifics of their background and culture and circumstances, we all have specificity in common. I would suggest to all writers who are wondering whether they should sand down their edges to instead hone their craft and sharpen their voice, so that the manuscript they put out there is the absolute best version of itself and is wholly their own. Don’t be intimidated by the fact that it’s hard, or that antisemites exist, because it’s always going to be hard and there’ll always be antisemites, but a great book is always going to be a great book, and your job as a writer is just to write great books. And the people who want that rep and need it will be very glad you wrote it.
BookishlyJewish: I always end by asking if you have a favorite Jewish book to recommend.
A.R. Vishny: I have many! I am currently obsessed with The Forbidden Bookby Sacha Lamb, Sorel and Clara are definitely kindred spirits (or at least solve their problems in similar, window-shaped ways). Readers who enjoyed all the Jewish folklore elements of Night Owlsand my sense of humor will also really like Samara Shanker’s Naomi Teitelbaum Ends The Worldwhich among other things has a golem briefly wearing American Girl Doll clothes, one of the best golem moments in literature of all time if you ask me.
Anyone who has sent in a book for review knows that while I am an avid reader, I am also a slow one. Mostly because while this blog brings me much personal joy, it’s also my fifth job. Or maybe sixth. At a certain point I stopped counting. Point is, I love books but sometimes it takes me a while to read them. In the case of Barbra Streisand’s autobiography My Name is Barbra, this was compounded by the actually length of the book itself.
This is not a problem. Streisand has done so much in her life – and she’s still going! – it makes sense for the book to be a chonker. However, while there are fiction chonkers that have grabbed my attention and held it so tightly I’ve managed to get through them rapidly, my brain does not work that way with nonfiction. The outcome is already known to me. It’s not a shock for readers that Streisand attains lofty EGOT winner status, or that she ends up married to James Brolin. The interest instead lies in finding out what she herself has to say about this journey. Given it’s almost one thousand pages, I was a little scared I wouldn’t make it though. While that worry proved to be unfounded, it did take me several months. I read history and biography by interspersing it with my fiction reading, either when a book gets so overwhelming I need a mental break or between finishing one book and starting another. It’s almost like a palette cleanser for my brain.
I did make some shocking discoveries along the way. Not about Streisand, but about myself. Turns out I have never actually watched a single Barbra Streisand movie or listened to a single Barbra Streisand song all the way through. I was honestly pretty surprised by that fact, but as I tried to sing past the second bar of ‘Meomories’ or ‘People’ it became obvious. Believe me, nobody was more shocked or embarrassed by this than I was.
I also really, really wish I could tolerate audiobooks. In a departure from most celebrity memoirs, Streisand does not appear to have used a ghost writer. The result is a text that meanders a little bit, and has so much name dropping I felt I needed a chart or cast of characters to keep everyone straight, but is also extremely conversational. At certain points she digresses and then says “but back to” whatever she was initially discussing. This felt very real and authentic, but it also made me think the audiobook would be amazing. Once again, Streisand does the job herself and is the audiobook narrator. This brings a closeness to the audiobook, making it a conversation between the reader and one of the most famous celebrities of our time. I already knew my brain rejects audio, but I tried anyway. Unfortunately, I just can’t process books that way so I went back to reading on paper. If you can listen though – I hugely recommend trying it.
Streisand wanting to do everything herself is a theme of the book. She is a self proclaimed perfectionist and this leads her to take on many different roles in her work in order to get the result she desires. She voices plenty of frustration with people who objected to that, but also easily gives credit to those who approach their work with similar devotion. Seeing how much someone else cared, enabled her to trust them to direct or produce her. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the album GUILTY produced by a Barry Gibb. Maybe that will be the first song I listen to.
There’s more layers to that aspect of the book though. Streisand correctly points out that when her desire to achieve her vision lead her to direct, or to ask for an extra take etc. she often received a very different response than her male counterparts would have received at the time. There was a raw honesty there- especially when she discusses the disastrous Mike Wallace interview and how people struggled to deal with a strong woman- that I admire. It is deplorable that a woman did not win an Oscar for directing until 2010, but fitting that Streisand was the one to present the award. And you know what? That Oscar went to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker – which I actually did watch, and I thought it was fantastic.
My Name is Barbra is exactly what Streisand promises in the foreword- a way for her to set the record straight in her own words and on her own terms, which is especially important given all the misogynistic and ridiculous things that have been said about her. But it is also exactly what she promises in the conclusion – a work in progress, because she is constantly looking to improve her past projects and frankly because she’s still alive and very active in politics as well as the arts. Having this background, I’m excited to see what she does next. Who knows – maybe I’ll actually watch a movie the whole way through!
As a blogger, I’m familiar with the difference between online personas and real life people. Those gorgeous photos your favorite grammer posts? Pan out and you’ll find the wreckage of everyday life. All this reading I do? My TBR is five times the size. Clever post? It’s been edited within an inch of its life. There’s a lot of pressure to constantly create content that is entertaining and flawless, but there’s also the ability to present only the side of yourself that you want seen. That’s a gift for some of us who just want a space to be our best selves and live our best lives online, even if we cannot do so in real life for various reasons.
Lucy Galindo, heroine of Jessica Lepe’s debut romance Flirty Little Secret, understands this. In real life, she’s a high school guidance counselor who also has some serious anxiety and depression, but online she’s @TheMissGuidedCounselor who is always ready with good advice and a listening ear. Which is why I totally related to her complete refusal to meet up with the online friend she’s been chatting (and flirting!) with for over a year. One, because you still never know who is a creepy cat fisher playing the long game. Two, and more importantly for Lucy, she wants to keep these parts of her lives separate. She needs a space where she can be perfect.
There’s just one catch. Since the story is dual POV the reader knows a delicious secret. The hot new history teacher Lucy is crushing on? He’s actually her online friend. Watching these two bumble around without realizing they already know each other is particularly hilarious. In fact, the voice of the entire book is hilarious. Lucy has a large extended family that knows no boundaries and Fletcher, the history teacher, has more drama in his life than a telenovella. Lepe has a unique style and she finds the humor in even everyday situations without relying on cheap stereotypes or bawdy sex jokes. It made the pages fly incredibly quickly. Which is good because like Lucy, I am not perfect, and this library book was overdue by the time I picked it up and started reading.
Identity is tricky for Lucy. Not only is she dealing with her mental health which she hides from her readers, she’s constantly wondering where she belongs in any community. Since her father is a Moroccan Jew the Ashkenaz community she finds herself in often makes her feel like the “wrong” kind of Jew, while some even doubt she’s Jewish at all because her mother is Mexican. Side note – once again this is handled with humor. I will not give it away but the thoughts in Lucy’s head when someone questions her about her background made me snort my beverage through my nose. I was so surprised by her candor and mischievous outlook.
The relationship that results at the end of the book helps Lucy see that what she was viewing as flaws are actually strengths that make her a more empathetic guidance counselor. I’m not quite ready to show you the heap of papers next to that pretty book stack photo but I will tell you this – I’m a thorough reader but a slow one. I get way more books than I can possibly read and review in a timely fashion. (I love you guest reviewers! Seriously). I constantly worry about letting down that author who may even have paid to ship me their book. I know my readers love the round ups most of all, but since I won’t include a book I haven’t read in those pieces, it means I can post less of them than I’d like. Like Lucy, I’m doing my best and always seeking new ways to be better. And I think you are ALL Jewish enough. XOXO.
