What would happen if the United States split into two countries, each fully expressing its own values and rejecting those they disagree with? The Jewish YA novel The Papercutterby Cindy Rizzo expores this question, along with a another: what would happen to the Jews in these divided states?
The teens in this story live one generation after a great split in American society. The G-d Fearing States (GFS) have promised the Jews religious freedom, and virtually all Orthodox Jews settled there. The United Progressive Regions (UPR), a bastion of technology, environmental consciousness and gender fluidity, is the home of liberal Jews. The state of Ohio is divided, so when Binyamin Fine chose to become more religious, he moved, married and has raised his family in the GFS in southern Ohio. His parents and teen younger sister, Dani, live in the north.
A pen pal program is established to bridge the cultural and spiritual gap between GFS and UPR Jews, and liberal Dani is paired with Jeffrey Schwartz, an Orthodox teen boy in the GFS. He and his friends, the Orthodox teens of the GFS, are often devoted to their faith, skeptical about their country’s dogmas, and frightened by increasing acts of anti-semitism in the country where they were promised safety.
One of Jeffrey’s friends, Judith Braverman, is gifted at the Jewish art of papercutting, creating extraordinary and intricate designs. She can also see people’s souls and know whether they are good or bad. Jeffrey has the most powerfully good soul she has ever seen. He also has a secret. He’s gay, and hiding it in a community that would never accept him for who he really is.
As Dani and Jeffrey correspond through the penpal program, the teens conceive of a way to communicate by code, using Dani’s technology and Judith’s papercutting skills. Soon, their efforts play an important role in communications between Jewish communities, which might just be needed to ensure all of their safety.
The Papercutter is an unusual novel in that many of the most important characters are gay and lesbian. As a straight woman, I found their experience compelling and well-developed. Being queer is certainly not always easy, even in communities that welcome it — nearly impossible in those that do not. For that reason, I think the book is an important read for queer Jews, who will surely see themselves in it — and for all other teen Jews, who will gain a deeper understanding of the experience.
Today, we can see the enormous political and cultural rift between Orthodox and liberal Jews, which parallels the polarization in American society and around the world. And yet, when it comes down to it, we’re family. This story, in which teen Jews of different religious perspectives take care of one another, helped me believe in the unity of the Jewish people, and that we can look to each other and look out for each other in times of danger, in spite of our differences. If only it didn’t require danger for us to see that we’re really one people. May it one day be so.
Content note: the book contains one brief memory of sexual assault of a male teen by another male teen.
Evonne Marzouk grew up in Philadelphia and received a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in the Writing Seminars program, with a minor in Religious Studies. She has worked on international policy and communications projects for two decades as an employee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. From 2004-2014, Evonne founded and served as executive director of Canfei Nesharim (recently merged with GrowTorah), an organization that teaches Jewish wisdom about protecting the environment, and she co-edited Uplifting People and Planet, a collection of Jewish environmental core teachings, published in 2014. Her first novel, The Prophetess, was published by Bancroft Press in 2019. Follow her on instagram at @StillEvonne.
You are a Jew first, an American second. Be grateful for this country but you will never be safe here. Don’t stand up and make waves, support whoever is in power, be sure they do not notice you. Revolution is bad for Jews, no matter which side you are on, they’ll ultimately blame you.
This is the stuff of many Jewish childhoods in the diaspora, especially following the Shoah. For the children of displaced people and the grandchildren of survivors bed time stories feature villains that are all too real and dreams are to survive and be safe. Because safe feels like the best one can hope for and survival was a duty to the Jewish people.
Keep you head down. Stay safe.
This is also the prevailing wisdom in 1956 Hungary, the setting of Katherine Locke’s powerful historical fantasy “This Rebel Heart”. When the story begins Csilla Tisza is preparing to flee Hungary, a country that first abandoned her family to the Shoah and then murdered her parents for being “Zionists” despite her fathers loyalty to the communist party. Csilla does not have time for idealisism and political movements the way her father did. She’s too busy “keeping careful the way she used to keep Shabbat”. Because in her reality “disappeared” is a verb that the government perpetuates on its citizens for no apparent reason. In her world, living to see tomorrow saps all of her energy. As her aunt puts it, “survival is a siege”.
When unrest in Poland sparks protest in Budapest, Csilla has no intentions of being swept up in the hysteria. She intends to leave. To survive. Until she meets an unassuming engineering student who demands more of her and an angel of death that reminds her that she, and her past, are so much more than her present.
Csilla takes to the streets in the face of unacceptable tyranny, much like our youth of today have done. She knows that she is unlikely to succeed. She sees the antisemitism and hatred for Jews spreading within fringes of the very movement she helped to form, and she still stands her ground and protests. Cries out for a country to be lawful and just even though it has never demonstrated an ability to do so in the past. She shows up for a country that has never shown up for her. Because, to paraphrase our sages, if she doesn’t show up, who will? If she is only for herself, then what is she? If not now, when?
These are the questions that Jews across the world have been asking over and over these last few years. These are the questions that have sparked intense debate across communities. The older generation, their scars still bleeding from watching other idealistic movements ignore the antisemitism in their midst -sometimes even using political upheaval as an excuse to purge themselves of Jews- advise waiting it out. But our youth insists on standing up. .
Because if kids can’t dream of bigger and better, then what really is the point? Because we are Americans AND Jews and one of those things should not have to take precedence over the other. Because there will never be a country that is “ours” but that does not mean our traditions are less important, our roots less firm, our duty to do what is right less sacred.
To be a Jew is to belong to nowhere and everywhere all at once. To be a Jew is to do what your heart knows is right, even if you have a “rebel heart” like Csilla.
Along the way, Csilla, her student, and her angel, somehow manage to walk arm in arm through the streets of Budapest and share the most romantic vibes despite the fact that their world is crumbling around them. Another thing they share in our common with the youth of today. The world may feel like it is ending, like every new day brings a new challenge and threat to our existence, and yet human acts of kindness and love still prevail.
I know it’s “historical fiction,” but this is a story for our time. Or maybe it is a story out of time. Belonging to every instance in which a person decides to stand up for what they know is right in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against them, despite the sad fact that often Jews are made to suffer disproportionately for their protests, even when our side “wins”. Because there’s a little Rebel heart in each of us, if only we learned to listen.
Note: I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher by requesting it through NetGalley
E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.
If you meet me in my home, my long sleeves and accent will cause you to make certain assumptions about me. If you stumble upon me at work, the string of letters after my name will lead you to an entirely different set of assumptions. However, many of you are here because you’ve met me online, through social media, where the snippets I post, have given rise to yet a third set of assumptions.
Which one is true? All of them. Or none of them. Depending on the day. Because defining myself and reconciling that image with the stereotypes the world thrusts upon me is complicated. It is a predicament I share with high school senior and resident slacker, Amalia Yaabez, the protagonist of Brianna Shrum’s delightfully quirky novel, Kissing Ezra Holtz (And Other Things I Did For Science).
Amalia has always thought of herself as an artist, so when her applications to art school are denied, she must redefine herself. In the process, she joins a bunch of AP classes and has the misfortune of being paired with her long time nemesis, Ezra Holtz, on a sociology project. Although Amalia- the proverbial wild child- has been bickering with straight-laced, Valedictorian-candidate, Ezra since their B’nei Mitvzah, observing him in his natural milieu of academia has Amalia viewing him in a new light. A sexy light. A light that makes her entirely uncomfortable.
As the book progresses, Amalia and Ezra confront many of their previous assumptions about each other. The manner in which they do so alternates between hilarious and hot, concluding with the most creative use of the word “levitically” you’re likely to find this side of the Talmud.
In the efforts of full disclosure, I am more of an Ezra than an Amalia. I’m not usually invited to parties, yet alone greeted as the savior of them. My idea of living dangerously is leaving less than ten minutes early for an appointment. And the science project that Ezra and Amalia performed had me seriously itching to teach the class about the ethics of human experimentation. Yet somehow, I still fell in love with Amalia as a person. Because I know what it’s like to have people think they know me based on a few limited interactions and labels. I know what’s it like to have everything I’ve ever wanted taken away by some arbitrary committee. Most of all, I appreciated watching Amalia internalize the fact that wanting something different than everybody else doesn’t make her less deserving of love. It makes her truthful to herself, which is a conclusion Ezra helps her reach.
I had a mini melt down over the sociology experiment. They don’t have an IRB. Students are experimenting on their peers after a quick nod of approval from a teacher who doesn’t even seem to have reviewed all of the materials. That dude should be fired, yesterday. I didn’t even spot informed consent. Yet, when my blood pressure cooled down, (admittedly still a work in progress), I was able to suspend my disbelief, stop railing about the inadequacies of the American educational system, and enjoy how unexpected and different this book was.
Ezra also helps dispel certain stereotypes with his observance of Judasim. There’s a mistaken and harmful notion out there that reform Jews are somehow less strict, that being reform allows them to break whatever rules they want. Ezra Holtz, who is so much more of a stickler than many Jews I know, proves that all wrong. It is a joy to see him represent reform Judaism on the page through both Shabbat and the high holidays.
This book is full of small surprises like that. Representation that is baked into the characters and plot rather than inserted as an afterthought. I promise, if you read it, you will find your horizons broader for having done so. And you will have a Damn Good Time. I did.
E Broderick is a physician and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.
Each and every Jewish book is a gift, but I am especially excited to welcome these debut books in 2022. I hope they are the start of long and healthy careers for the Jewish writers that created them with love. If you hope for that too, consider per-ordering and reviewing when you get your copy.
A young girl practices the Four Questions on her apartment balcony, and finds a way to bring the neighbors together for Passover even during the separation of a pandemic.
In the new country, Shirley and her family all have big dreams. Take the family store: Shirley has great ideas about how to make it more modern! Prettier! More profitable! She even thinks she can sell the one specialty no one seems to want to try: Mama’s homemade gefilte fish.
But her parents think she’s too young to help. And anyway they didn’t come to America for their little girl to work. “Go play with the cat!” they urge.
This doesn’t stop Shirley’s ideas, of course. And one day, when the rest of the family has to rush out leaving her in the store with sleepy Mrs. Gottlieb.Shirley seizes her chance!
Kohei Fujiwara has never seen a big ryū in real life. Those dragons all disappeared from Japan after World War II, and twenty years later, they’ve become the stuff of legend. Their smaller cousins, who can fit in your palm, are all that remain. And Kohei loves his ryū, Yuharu, but.
.Kohei has a memory of the big ryū. He knows that’s impossible, but still, it’s there, in his mind. In it, he can see his grandpa – Ojiisan – gazing up at the big ryū with what looks to Kohei like total and absolute wonder. When Kohei was little, he dreamed he’d go on a grand quest to bring the big ryū back, to get Ojiisan to smile again.
But now, Ojiisan is really, really sick. And Kohei is running out of time.
Kohei needs to find the big ryū now, before it’s too late. With the help of Isolde, his new half-Jewish, half-Japanese neighbor; and Isolde’s Yiddish-speaking dragon, Cheshire; he thinks he can do it. Maybe. He doesn’t have a choice.
In The Lost Ryū, debut author Emi Watanabe Cohen gives us a story of multigenerational pain, magic, and the lengths to which we’ll go to protect the people we love.
A young girl grapples with her grief over a tragic loss with the help of a new perspective from Hebrew school and supportive new friends in this heartfelt middle grade novel about learning to look forward. Twelve-year-old Daisy and Ruby are totally inseparable. They’ve grown up together, and Daisy has always counted on having Ruby there to pave the way, encourage her to try new things, and to see the magic in the world. Then Ruby is killed in a tragic accident while on vacation, and Daisy’s life is shattered. Now Daisy finds herself having to face the big things in her life–like starting middle school and becoming a big sister–without her best friend. It’s hard when you feel sad all the time. But thanks to new friends, new insights, and supportive family members, Daisy is able to see what life after Ruby can look like. And as she reaches beyond that to help repair the world around her, she is reminded that friendship is eternal, and that magic can be found in the presence of anyone who chooses to embrace it.
A long ago “accident.” An isolated girl named Aviva. A community that wants to help, but doesn’t know how. And a ghostly dybbuk, that no one but Aviva can see, causing mayhem and mischief that everyone blames on her.
That is the setting for this suspenseful novel of a girl who seems to have lost everything, including her best friend Kayla, and a mother who was once vibrant and popular, but who now can’t always get out of bed in the morning.
As tensions escalate in the Jewish community of Beacon with incidents of vandalism and a swastika carved into new concrete poured near the synagogue.so does the tension grow between Aviva and Kayla and the girls at their school, and so do the actions of the dybbuk grow worse.
Could real harm be coming Aviva’s way? And is it somehow related to the “accident” that took her father years ago?
Aviva vs. the Dybbuk is a compelling, tender story about friendship and community, grief and healing, and one indomitable girl who somehow manages to connect them all.
An #OwnVoices debut middle-grade novel in the vein of Aru Shah that gives traditional Jewish folklore a modern twist. Naomi is preparing for her bat mitzvah when she receives a mysterious gift: a Golem that obeys her every command. When the Golem gets out of control, Naomi and her friends are sent on an adventure to set things right before the Golem accidentally brings about the end of the world. Publication is scheduled for fall 2022; Stephanie Hansen at Metamorphosis Literary handled the deal for world rights.
Hoodie Rosen has recently moved to the town of Tregaron, where members of his Orthodox Jewish community are looking to build a new home. But the town’s mayor and many of the people who live there aren’t all that thrilled about it, and are in fact blocking them at every turn. Hoodie isn’t so bothered, though–he’s leaving the worrying to the adults who spend their days thusly engaged. He’s got studies at the yeshiva to avoid, basketball to play, and a supermarket full of delicious imported British kosher Starbursts to eat.
But when he meets–and falls for–Anna-Marie Diaz-O’Leary, he discovers a couple of minor problems. First, as a good yeshiva boy, he’s not really supposed to talk to girls, especially girls who aren’t Jewish. And second, Anna-Marie’s mother just so happens to be Tregaron’s mayor and the leader of the effort to stop Hoodie’s community from living in the town.
Hoodie’s family, friends, and rabbis all see his friendship with Anna-Marie as a betrayal of their traditions–he’s siding with the enemy, they say, the people who are against them. And with the weight of centuries of Jewish oppression on their shoulders, that’s not something they take lightly. But Hoodie doesn’t understand why everyone can’t just get along. After all, isn’t befriending Anna-Marie a great way to bring the sides together?
When a string of antisemitic crimes comes to Tregaron, though, Hoodie finds himself caught between two worlds. And when those crimes escalate to deadly violence–the kind with hate-filled manifestos, carefully picked targets, and fully loaded guns–the town and its factions must all face the truth, Hoodie included.
In this ripped-from-the-headlines story, debut author Isaac Blum delivers a perfect blend of wry, witty writing and a deeply important topic that will resonate well beyond the community it describes.
A YA novel with a voice reminiscent of a (queer) Isaac Bashevis Singer story, about Uriel the angel and Little Ash the demon, centuries-long study partners in their small shtetl, who decide to travel to America (a place that turns out to be more complicated than they expect) with two young women who are deeply connected.
Harper is anxiously awaiting placement into a top oral surgery residency program when she crashes (literally) into Dan. Harper would rather endure a Novocaine-free root canal than face any distractions, even one this adorable. A first-year dental student with a family legacy to contend with, Dan doesn’t have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does. Though he finds himself falling for her, he is willing to play by Harper’s rules. So with the greatest of intentions and the poorest of follow-throughs, the two set out to be “just friends.” But as they get to know each other better, Harper fears that trading fillings for feelings may make her lose control and can’t risk her carefully ordered life coming undone, no matter how drool-worthy Dan is.
Blood, gore, and extra-long roots? No problem. The idea of falling in love? Torture.
Fans of the Hallmark Channel and Gilmore Girls will adore this delightful rom‑com about a city girl who goes in search of small-town happiness, only to discover life—and love—are nothing like the TV movies.
Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she’s learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it’s that she’ll find love in a small town—the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she’s found the perfect story—one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real . . . and maybe even find her dream man in the process.
Only Pleasant Hollow isn’t exactly “pleasant.” There’s no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, who’s more mouthwatering than the homemade cherry pie Adi can’t seem to find—even if he does work for the company she’d hoped to bring down. Suddenly Adi has to wonder if maybe TV got it all wrong after all. But will following her heart mean losing her chance to break into the big time?
Burdened by a troubled history with her mother, Elizabeth struggles to raise her own teenage daughter differently. She wants to celebrate when Belle receives a fabulous opportunity miles away in New York City, but is concerned that this move will prolong the estrangement between them. Even worse, it would entail Belle being raised by her grandmother-the person from whom Elizabeth has purposefully distanced herself.
Belle is certain that everything will be better once she gets to the big city, and Grandmother Lillian intends to vicariously enjoy Belle’s success. Left back home, Elizabeth focuses her energy on a young girl who has been removed from her home by social services and, unlike Belle, wants nothing more than to be mothered.
While the individual journeys of these women lead them back to one another, the sudden disclosure of a long-buried secret threatens to keep them apart forever.
Caroline Goldberg Igra’s From Where I Stand explores the challenge of being a mother, the frustration of being a daughter, and the heart-wrenching complexity of being both.
Escape Route is set in New York City during the tumultuous late 1960s. Told by teenager Zach, a first-generation son of Holocaust survivors and NY Mets fan, who becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and with finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up and incarcerate its Jews. Zach meets Samm, a seventh-generation Manhattanite whose brother has returned from Vietnam with PTSD. Together they explore protest, friendship, music, faith, and love during a time littered with hope and upheaval around the globe.
I’m thrilled to share our very first cover reveal! Everything Thaws by R.B. Lemberg is a poetry memoir about Soviet Jews, climate change and the Vorkuta Gulag. It releases on June 1, 2022 from Ben Yehuda Press. Here’s the back cover copy, including a snippet:
The northern lights
above me, undulating with the sky’s darkness
over a vast whiteness of the earth, and cupped
between these polarities, belonging
nowhere, I ran
R.B. Lemberg’s poems are a manifesto of memories, unearthing worlds that are gone and poignantly present: their childhood in the Soviet Union, suspended between Ukraine and the permafrost of Vorkuta, among the traumatized, silent, persecuted members of their Jewish family; Lemberg’s coming of age in Israel, being the other wherever they go, both internally and externally, in multiple identities, languages, genders; and the arrival in “the lost land” of their America, where they have put down “tentative roots.”
Every line in this stunning, lyrical memoir is chiseled with the poignant precision of ice into a coruscating cascade that engulfs us with the author’s sensations of solitude, anger, grief; sometimes hurling like an avalanche, sometimes tenderly unfolding like constellations in a circumpolar sky – leaving open the possibility that with the disturbing truths covered for decades, the thawing permafrost from Lemberg’s past might also lay bare layers of love.
Here is the cover, featuring the gorgeous photography of Arseniy Kotov. This particular photo was taken in Vorkuta, a mining town and former forced labor camp, 110 miles from the Arctic Oocean.
R.B. Lemberg (they/them/theirs) is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe. Their work has appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Unlikely Story, Uncanny, and other venues. Their book The Four Profound Weaves was a finalist for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Ignyte, and Locus Awards. R.B. was born in Ukraine, and lived in subarctic Russia and Israel before coming to the US for graduate school at UC Berkeley. They are a sociolinguist, and they work as an associate professor at a Midwestern university. Their web site is at http://rblemberg.net/
After posting a review of The Jewish Book of Horror we were delighted to hear from one of the featured authors, Rami Ungar. Rami was brave enough to volunteer to be the first author in the Bookishly Jewish author interview series and Evalyn happily took him up on the offer. Read on to see the results of their e-interview. Evalyn’s questions are in bold followed by Rami’s responses.
What drew you to horror as a genre?
A lot draws me to the horror genre, but it was Stephen King that made me decide to be a horror writer. I was twelve when I read IT, and it gave me nightmares, but it also fascinated and amazed me. The storytelling, the characters, the ability to terrify with just words. I could not get it over it! As I sat on the porch of my bunk at summer camp (Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, by the way. Great Jewish summer camp) after finishing the novel, I realized I wanted to write horror stories like IT. I’d been wanting to be a writer for years by then, but that was a turning point for me. And since then, a lot has happened.
What are you hoping readers take away from your stories?
I hope they come away scared, first and foremost. That’s what every horror writer wants with their stories. But I also hope they enjoy the stories and that they are tempted to come back for more. That, and they let me know what they think of my work somehow.
As a writer of both short and long fiction, what do you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of each form?
Long fiction is actually a lot easier for me to write. I’m an expansive storyteller, so I like being able to spread my wings and spend thousands and thousands of words on a single story. That being said, novels require a lot of time and energy, and several more drafts than a short story or a novelette. They also may take a few years to find a home for, whereas a good short story might find a home in a matter of months. On the other hand, while short stories and novelettes are challenging for me because I have to be succinct and make every word count, there’s something about the punch of a short story that I love. They can disturb your inner Zen and leave you feeling unsettled for days, and in just only a few thousand words. It’s something I’ve been trying to master for years, and I’m glad I’m finally seeing some progress (though I will always maintain I have plenty of room to improve).
How does being Jewish impact your writing or your career?
Well, some of my earliest stories had Jewish themes and characters. For a number of years, my stories had my moral perspective on the world, which is informed by my Jewish beliefs, though they didn’t usually have Jewish characters. Lately, though, I’ve been putting more of an effort into including Jewish characters in my work. I like seeing myself represented in the fiction I consume, and since I write the stories I would like to read, that’s going to reflect in future stories I write. In fact, I hope to start on a novel sometime next year revolving around a mummy, and most of the characters will be Jewish. If we’re lucky, I’ll be able to make a joke about Moses and the Exodus while I’m at it.
What do you like to read?
Horror, obviously. I’m a big fan of Stephen King, though I also read a bunch of other authors. I also read a lot of fantasy, such as the Witcher novels and Japanese fantasy light novels. And I consume lots and lots of manga. In fact, I was known as a bit of a nut for manga back in high school as well as a horror nut. Plenty of people still remember me for both.
What is your favorite Jewish Book?
Night by Elie Wiesel. Not because it’s a Holocaust memoir, which makes it a horror story in a way, but because some of the passages still haunt me to this day. If you compare the beginning, where Wiesel is learning Kabbalah even though he’s not old enough and it’s sort of a blissful spiritual existence, and then compare it to the end of the book, where he sees himself in a mirror for the first time in years after the camps are liberated and all he sees is a corpse of a teen, it’s a striking image that shows just how much the Holocaust scarred so many people.
Actually, I met Elie Wiesel once. He gave a speech at the synagogue I attended as a kid. Later on, I got to take a photo with him. I wish I remembered more of that night, but I was young and my attention wandered much more easily then. So I only remember his opening joke in the speech. It saddens me.
Rami Ungar is a horror novelist and the son of two rabbis from Columbus, OH. He has published four books and has another book, ‘Hannah and Other Stories,’ on the way from BSC Publishing Group. When not writing, Rami enjoys reading, watching anime and following his interests, and giving people the impression he’s not entirely human.
Don’t store food beneath a bed. Never drink anything that has been left out overnight. Openings in a home cannot be permanently sealed. You can’t save an onion if you’ve removed the stem. These are rules I’ve always kept despite my skepticism about their origins. Because these rules are what protect me from sheidim (Demons of Jewish lore).
However, there is also another set of rules. A set that I inherently obeyed, no matter how much they made me squirm, chaffing against me like the plastic tag in a new piece of clothing I’ve forgotten to remove. A set of rules whose origins we didn’t dare to speak out loud but were plainly written in the numbers on my grandfathers arm.
Don’t throw out food. No walking home alone at night from organic chemistry (yes, my parents arranged a carpool for me in COLLEGE). Keep the windows shut and the doors locked tight the night before Christmas and Easter. Forget Halloween. Jewish school let out early so we could all be safely shuttered away in our homes before dusk on those “eves” aka the nights a pogrom was most likely to happen back in the shtetl. The world outside had shown it was not a safe place, and I was therefore not allowed to participate in it.
Somehow, some magical way, Rebecca Podos has written a book that articulates all of these rules, and so many more, through the lens of the American Jewish teenager of today. There is no one Jewish experience, in fact the Judaism in “From Dust A Flame” is distinctly different from the one I grew up practicing, but the underlying ethos is the same. This is a book about parents and children, the secrets we keep from each other and the generational trauma that keeps us from moving forward. That, in my humble opinion, is universal.
The main character, Hannah, has been dragged around the country by a mother she has never quite understood and whom she suspects has always favored her adopted brother, Gabe. Yet on Hannah’s seventeenth birthday it is she, and not Gabe, who receives the family heirloom hamsa necklace from her mother and wakes up in the throes of a body transforming curse. Although her mother heads off to find help, it shortly becomes clear that she won’t be returning any time soon and Hannah and Gabe must search for a cure on their own.
What they find is an entire Jewish family they knew nothing about, a partner in crime named Ari, and a Golem which they manage to reanimate. Along the way, Gabe grapples with his adoption and how it relates to the families newly found Judaism and Hannah begins to have some not- so – straight feelings towards Ari.
This trio of teens is captivating, voicey and so full of love you can’t help but root for them, yet I hope you’ll allow me to show my age a bit when I tell you that the speech in the book that most resonated with me belonged to one of the moms. It’s hard to know where to draw the line between safety and paranoia when, as Ari’s mom put it in the book, everything from sheidim to uncut grapes is a danger.
It’s a fine line that Podos expertly walks across three generations of Jews. When to hold fast and when to let go. How to regain what is lost after a mistake has been made. How to move forward together. Because at the end of the day, that is what Jews have been doing for generations. Gathering up what remains in the dust after the world comes for us and lighting that spark, the pintele yid, and nourishing it until once again it becomes a roaring flame.
Note: I received an arc of this book from the author after saying I was coveting it so hard it was possibly a tenth commandment violation. I suppose she took pity on my immortal soul.
E. Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, February 2020 (updated paperback 2022)
266 pages
Review by: Marci Bykat
Judaism should be strengthened by our diversity as a people, so why aren’t we growing stronger? Remix Judaism, by Roberta Rosenthal Kwall makes the thought-provoking case that it is precisely the diversity of choice, or more specifically, the lack of Jewish choices being made, that is causing an extreme loss of Jewish tradition, literacy, and practice. Many Jews today identify as Jewish by culture, but not by practice, as Kwall describes to the reader. She passionately proves that regardless of which pathway one is coming from, cultural or traditional, Remix Judaism can help to rebuild and reenergize our entire Jewish collective.
The pathway that I personally am coming from is a ‘remix’ of both the liberal and the traditional. As a graduate student in Jewish Studies and a religious schoolteacher, I found Remix Judaism enlightening and an asset to my teaching. It breaks down many questions of why we do the things we do, traditions, holidays, and rituals, with answers and options of how we can apply them to the realities of our hectic and complicated lives. It helped me realize that to teach about Judaism, I need to create consistent and real connections to traditions and make these traditions as personally meaningful to my students as possible.
With what feels like a constant metamorphosis of some kind or other in my own personal Jewish journey, I am sure that finding Roberta Rosenthal Kwall along this path recently was for a reason. In the last six months, we lost my father-in-law and my own father. Both losses were rather unexpected, and with their passing so closely to one another, I am sure one can imagine why it has caused me to feel a great soul searching and spiritual change like I have never experienced before.
I read this book after both had passed, yet it illuminated many things to me about the mourning rituals which are all so fresh to me, and many which I hadn’t even known about. Reading about these traditions, shed light on many things I have been feeling but hadn’t had the literacy to define or articulate.
Due to the pandemic, my mother chose to have only one day of Shiva for my father, and in my state of mind, I didn’t challenge it, nor did I have a larger sense of the purpose of that tradition at the time to ensure that we did have it. Ultimately, this is an example of a gap in my knowledge, and had I had a richer understanding of these rituals, I could have benefited from the knowledge. If I had a full 7 days of Shiva, I may not have felt such a desperate grief and loneliness on the day after the burial, with no Shiva, no formal prayers, no structure of familiar faces to hold me up. Interestingly, I did feel compelled, without much background understanding as to exactly why, to say Kaddish for my father regularly at a nearby Orthodox shul, which has been incredibly comforting to me over these past few months. Though this is an extreme example, it just showed me that building up a “thicker” knowledge and engagement of Jewish traditions as Kwall often advises, can only help one feel more at home in their Jewish culture.
Kwall demonstrates her deep understanding of the contemporary Jewish narratives by applying a wide array of wisdom from Jewish texts, personal stories and even prayers to the realities of today’s diaspora Jews. She makes the clear argument for “why” and “how” this Remix reality can help us all better participate in our Jewish lives, and she does it in a way that both educates and entertains. Remix Judaism provides a fresh clarity to our often opaque and ever shifting moment in the Jewish American landscape. For me, Remix Judaism has become a resource, a place I can go to be fueled with knowledge so that I can make the choices that are meaningful to me, empowered and energized with my people’s traditions that are now my own too.
Marci Bykat is a freelance artist and educator, currently teaching art and first grade Sunday school in Michigan. She is working on her Masters Degree in Jewish Professional Studies at The Spertus Institute in Chicago and is interested in finding the intersection of Jewish collective identity with the arts. She is hoping to shape, by means of the creative arts, how we engage with our Judaism and our Jewish community in imaginative and fresh ways in the hopes of rebuilding our collective pride and literacy.
Every child has THAT book. The book they keep shoving at their parents, over and over again, begging for a reading. Typically said book is reserved for bedtime bribery. Sometimes it is hidden to preserve parental sanity. My personal favorite is when an older sibling is paid to read THE BOOK to the little sibling. Yet there is one book that I will happily read each and every time. That book isHere is the Worldwritten by Leslea Newman and Illustrated by Susan Gal.
From the cover picture of a happy family romping near a tree to the descriptions of each holiday, this book fills me with nostalgia. Perhaps it is because the curly haired mom favors dresses and boots like me. Perhaps it is the inclusion of even minor holidays like Tu B’shvat, which I delight in celebrating. Or maybe it is the depiction of a baby naming ceremony for a little girl. Maybe it’s all of those things put together. All I know is reading this book, with a small person cuddled onto my lap, feels like coming home to a warm bowl of soup and a snugly afghan.
The text is a simple primer to Jewish holidays for children and adults alike. No prior knowledge is necessary, but for those who do already celebrate these days it can be a way to open a discussion on family traditions. Talk about holidays you enjoy. Find the activities that are meaningful for your family. Use the pages as a stepping stone on your journey, not an end point.
Observance, and family, can come in many different flavors. This book is appropriate for them all. To the point where I have actually volunteered to read it for the umpteenth time to a child looking for a story.
E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.
My journey to Jewish observance, like so many others’, has been a winding path of distance and proximity. Alienated by my fathers’ Conservadox upbringing that taught I wasn’t a Jew because my mother was Irish Catholic, I felt uncomfortable owning the identity myself. Then again, as a queer, trans adult, I couldn’t imagine a Judaism that had space for me. But I’ve always been a spiritual person, a “seeker.” I wanted to belong to something, to have something of my own.
I’m also a chronically ill person that has reached the point where I’m willing to try anything at least once in the hopes that it will lead to some small reprieve from the pain. So, “jewitchery” was the first Jewish space that felt like it might be my own. I was drawn to the idea of tracking time by the moon, of wandering through plant life and knowing each plant’s secret name, of healing myself with something western medicine had long forsaken. (A note here: I take my meds and thoroughly believe in science – these things do not need to be at odds with one another.)
So, even now that I’m comfortable and firm in my Jewish identity and observance, when the debut of Ashkenazi Herbalismwas announced, I felt a thrill. The book promised medicinal plant knowledge from a lineage that I could arguably claim as my own, or at least closely adjacent to my own.
The book is broken up into three sections. Section one is an overview of both Ashkenazim and Ashkenazi healer history. It feels rich and healing all on its own. Especially for someone who has been on the outskirts of Jewish knowledge for so long, reading through the short histories of early Jewish pharmacies and physicians, the ba’alei shem (Kabbalists and healers who traveled to rid people of afflictions), midwives, and so much more, felt like kneeling at the feet of a bubbe I’ve never had and being told stories of our heritage.
The second section is the Materia Medica, which includes 26 plants that were known to and used by Jewish healers that lived within the Pale of Settlement between the two World Wars. Each plant has a simple black and white illustration (done by Deatra Cohen), the name of the plant in English and most European languages Ashkenasim speak (including Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish), and the uses of the plant during different time periods.
The final section is a brief afterword that gives credit to previous works of collected herbalism, notes the difficulty of collecting information that was often intentionally destroyed due to antisemitism, and outlines the method of data collection for this book. What follows the afterword are two appendices about history, and a bibliography to make nonfiction lovers’ to-read piles weep.
The authors, Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel are librarians and put immense care into both the research conducted and the accessible presentation of information. While they are careful to inform readers that the plant entries are meant to be historical reference and not a practical guide, the book did leave me feeling empowered to seek out how herbalism might be more present in my own Jewish practice.
Al Rosenberg is a queer millennial crying about plant life and small animals in the Chicagoland area. Once a video game journalist, they now write about illness, Judaism, and gender (and once in a while still play video games). They work in marketing and strategic planning for nonprofits when they’re not proofreading fiction for their clients. Find them at www.alaboutwriting.com or on Twitter: @alaboutwriting
