A few times a year there will be a book that is literally everywhere. I cannot escape its presence, even if I stay off social media. In the case of Esther Chehebar’s debut novel, Sisters of Fortune, I couldn’t even go to the beach this summer without spotting it! (To be fair, she had her launch in the beach club. I should’ve expected it). In this particular case, Sisters Of Fortune, is also a book I really wanted to see succeed, because it is the first traditionally published book set in the contemporary Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn (for some historical fiction see our review of Corie Adjmi’s The Marriage Box). So I was delighted to see that pink cover out and about and on my socials. But it also meant that I had to wait forever for my library hold to come in and even then I could only access it via e-book.
Did Sisters of Fortune live up to all the hype and expectations? Yes and no. The book does an excellent job of representing the Syrian Jewish community. Its strongest paragraphs appear when Chehebar ponders the push and pull of the community – how it can provide everything and be a tremendous source of support and comfort, while simultaneously stifling personal expression and setting unrealistic financial and beauty expectations. She captures the tension between immigrant grandparents, who are frankly happy to simply have escaped persecution, and their grandchildren who reflect their new homeland by wanting more out of life.
It was in the plot where I wanted just a little bit more to satisfy my admittedly sky high expectations. The novel follows three sisters – Nina, Fortune, and Lucy – who are all on the uber competitive community marriage market. (Side bar: am I the only person wondering why Fortune is named after the paternal grandmother when the book itself states that this honor usually goes to the firstborn girl and therefore should have been given to Nina?) When the book opens Nina is a rebellious “older single” who wants to escape the community that has written her off us no longer worthy since she is still single well into her twenties, while Fortune is engaged and participating in a lot of pre-wedding hoopla. Except Fortune doesn’t appear to be having all that much fun despite being the bride. That honor goes to her little sister Lucy, who is still in high school but is universally acknowledged to be the beauty of the family and is dating a very eligible (although significantly older) man, making her the envy of all her teenage friends and the community at large.
There is the potential for a lot of tension and character growth for the sisters. They each have a unique voice and personality. Unfortunately, none of their stories hit perfectly for me. Fortune has a surprising arc, but the moments of her deepest personal reflection and growth appear to have been left on the cutting room floor in an unexpected time lapse in the last third of the book. Nina’s story was almost perfect, I simply would have liked to have seen her get more page time to explore her reconciliation with the community outside of her dating prospects. Meanwhile, Lucy’s is the story that I’m guessing upsets most readers, because it involves an age gap romance. I’m not actually opposed to age gap romances myself. However, this particular story involves a high schooler in an intimate relationship with a thirty year old, and the community is depicted as practically pushing her into his arms since he’s rich. It’s consensual, but still an ethically complex situation that could have been the set up for a critical look at a situation that is actually not that uncommon in many communities around the world. Instead, the broader societal implications are largely unexplored. Chehebar shows the relationship beginning to fray, most tellingly in Lucy’s discomfort any time she has to leave the community, but in the end further discussion is curtailed in order to name drop a large list of luxury goods that are keeping Lucy happy. I don’t mind a happy ending – I prefer them! – but I’d love a little more depth to the journey that takes us there.
Aside from the age gap relationship, I would also point out for my readers who have sensitivity to disordered eating and body image, that this book does contain graphic descriptions of both. If you can name an eating disorder, or other body distortion, someone in this book has it and everyone around her generally thinks it’s a good thing because it improves her marriage prospects. I actually thought this was very realistic, and one of the few topics that Chehebar really did not shy away from, but I know it’s a hard no for some readers as it causes them to relapse on their own condition etc. If that’s you – go ahead and skip this book.
Sisters of Fortune is ambitious and it carries the wight of an entire community on its back. It mostly manages to meet those goals, but I got the sense that it is hard to be publicly critical of a community that one still lives in. Read this book for the representation, for the Syrian culture and food, and the depiction of the dynamics of sisterhood – how women can both support and compete with each other. And yes, it does make an excellent beach read.
Chayei Sarah opens with sadness, but ends with joy. After the burial arrangements for Sarah are concluded, Abraham realizes it’s time to find Yitzchak a wife. Wanting to marry within the family, (that was a thing back then, just go with it), he deputizes his servant Eliezer to go seek a bride among his relatives in Haran. This is worthy of note. Eliezer is the first named matchmaker in history! And his job is so important and tricky he has to pray to God for a miracle to make sure he succeeds. Which reminds me of the book I literally just read – Heidi Shertok’s Match Me If You Can.
Heidi Shertok narrators tend to be delightful goofballs, which might make you wonder how I’m pairing this book to the parsha, but hear me out. The heroine, Ashira, is a matchmaker whose business is now on the rocks thanks to a disgruntled former client. In order to save her reputation, she’s trying to match the most desirable, yet un-matchable, single she knows – her brothers best friend. Her task seems insurmountable, as did Eliezer’s. Frankly, every successful is a miracle from God, no matter who is involved. Two people are finding each other amongst so many others and committing to spend their lives together. A little prayer is more than understandable given the circumstances.
Since Match Me if You Can is a romance novel, it will not be a spoiler to let you know that Ashira begins to have feelings of her own for her tricky client. They are pictured on the cover together. However, you may be surprised to know that Eliezer too had other designs for his client. When he asks Abraham to absolve him of the responsibility in case he fails, Rashi comments that he was secretly hoping to suggest his own daughter as a match rather than importing a bride from Haran. Also not a spoiler to say that this plan never stood a chance since Rivkah was revealed via the miracle of the water rising, her kindness in offering to water the animals, and her courage in telling her family she would indeed go with Eliezer when they try and convince her to stay a little longer.
More beautiful though? The realization that love can help us work through grief. We end the Parsha on Yitzchak finally being comforted over the death of his mother. Through his marriage, he finds some peace. Ashira is struggling with the passing of her mother, and one of the best signs that this is the man for her is his consistent ability to motivate her to address her own health. Love is a healing process. And it’s a joy to end a book or a parsha on it.
Mari Lowe books have always been the epitome of Orthodox Jewish representation for me. The first time I held one of her books in my hand (Aviva vs. the Dybbuk) was the first time I saw myself in a traditionally published book. It was a meaningful moment, followed by even more meaningful moments as that book and Lowe’s subsequent book both went on to win many honors, including Sydney Taylor awards. In her third middle grade offering, Beinoni, Lowe moves away from the world of contemporary orthodox Jewish girls and into the realm of orthodox Jewish boys who fight monsters. Literally. Beinoni has a male main character named Ezra and his bar mitzvah is going to come with one huge hitch. Forget messing up the Torah chanting or fumbling the speech. Ezra must fight a demon or watch the whole world go up in smoke. Talk about parties to end all parties.
The story takes its inspiration from a mysterious Talmud story (admittedly the Talmud is full of mysterious stories. We love to see it!). After the destruction of the temple, so the story goes, the Rabbis prayed to God to remove mans inclination toward idol worship. God granted their wish and the evil inclination took the shape of a lion cub that was promptly trapped in a lead container. Thus explaining my lack of drive to bow down to inanimate objects and whatnot. The trade off? Man was no longer capable of prophecy. The Talmud story goes on to explain why the process couldn’t be repeated towards other evil inclinations, but we’ll leave it there to discuss the book at hand.
In the fictional world of Beinoni, Lowe takes the Talmud story even further. Instead of simply trapping the beast once, she sets up a premise in which the evil inclination returns every 70 years to face a special chosen one – a bar mitzvah boy or girl – who must slay it to maintain balance in the world. Should this young person who frankly never asked for this anyway fail in their job, the evil inclination will grow stronger and spread its awfulness across the world until the next chosen one becomes thirteen and gets another chance at defeating it. In Lowe’s take on the story, this is not just the evil inclination for idolatry, but rather the source of all evil. Without it there world is in a Beinoni state. Beinoni translates to in between, medium, so-so, meh, tepid, you get the picture. Sure, nothing terrible can happen? But the trade off? the world didn’t just lose prophecy. It lost the ability for anything exceptional – good or bad. Fail to kill the beast, and there will be war and famine and unspeakable atrocities, but cage it and you’ll get nothing but mediocrity from the entire universe.
How anyone has the right to say that’s a good deal, and make that decision for everyone, is a central question of the book. Especially sine the decision appears to be resting with a random thirteen year old who just so happens to have a funky birthmark.
Ezra is proud to be the chosen one, and feeling really pumped for his mission, until the Beinoni state of the world starts to slip. There are wars, fires, and tragedies abound. But even more disconcerting? As Chosen One, Ezra was always on top of his class and his fighting game. With the breaks taken off everyone else, he’s suddenly struggling to keep up with anything. And nobody believes him. If they suspect the state of the world is slipping, they most certainly don’t want to admit it. Which is how he ends up totally failing school and hanging out with students his father does not approve of. All while some secret society appears to be trying to kidnap him to keep the world out of the Beinoni state. It’s a lot for one almost thirteen year old to handle. Then again? So was defeating a mythic beast in the first place.
Readers who love Lowe’s surprise twists will not be disappointed (although I am proud to say I figured this one out about 1/4 into the book). In addition, while we have a male protagonist, the coolest character is arguably Mariam whom we will forgive for the unconventional spelling of her name because she is a total badass even without being the chosen one. Seriously, when the boys finally let her into the investigation she pretty much blows the whole thing wide open for them. Making all of us wonder if that birthmark maybe ended up on the wrong kid. Plus, there is a warm and loving depiction of Orthodox life, both at home and in Yeshiva. Including how to deal with an ADHD diagnosis. Lowe is an educator and it shows in her thoughtful depiction of what goes on at the yeshiva once the boys can finally reach their potential – or fail spectacularly – since Beinoni is broken.
There are deep questions here, both about friendship and good and evil. Nothing is black and white, and as the Rabbi’s learn in the original story – sometimes the evil inclination is a necessary thing. Other times not so much. How to find that balance is a great question for bar or bat mitzvah children to be asking themselves, even if they don’t have to slay a fiery demon.
Note: Bookishlyjewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we asked for one.
Another packed week! Vayera brings us three angels (they have always fascinated me, and one day I mean to write about them!), Sarah conceiving a child in her old age, the destruction of Sodom including some unfortunate repercussions for Lot’s wife and Lot himself, another abduction of Sarah, not to mention the sacrifice of Isaac. Where to even begin? I’d like to tackle the banishment of Ishmael. In Leah Hagar Cohen’s literary novel To & Fro the reader meets two different stories, each that can be related back to this episode.
Let me just say that while the Torah is the coolest book ever, To & Fro comes in as a close second. The book has two covers, and you can start reading from the front or back cover and that will determine which story you read fist. They have overlaping elements but are independent. In one story we have Ani, chasing a man on a horse and trying to reconcile her past which has overtones of the Ishmael and Hagar story. Ani is straight out of a Kafka parable and those allusions are felt heavily, yet Ani creates a story all her own – including some interesting commentary on Jewish learning. Meanwhile, the second story takes place in regular old Manhattan and follows the coming of age of Annamae. Which is a different type of journey, but no less daunting.
There is no hard and fast moral lesson in To & Fro. Instead the text asks us to remember that there are always two sides to every story, and that we need to listen to each other. Sometimes nobody is right and nobody is wrong and everybody is right and everybody is wrong all at the same time. Learning how to hold that complex thought in ones head is part of growing up. Both stories are about loneliness, searching, and kindness even in the face of that which we do not understand. It makes a perfect companion for the Parsha this week.
There is something so nostalgic about the books we read as children. Every writer has a huge list of books that takes them back to special places and times in their lives. It makes sense that memoir writer Ilana Kurshan, who has essentially built her life and career around books, wants to talk about reading out loud as a means to explore being a mother to five small children. However, she’s not content to simply describe the struggle of squeezing in some reading time while parenting. In Children of The Book, her second memoir, she links her family’s reading to the five books of the Chumash and takes us through both literary and parenting lessons learned through the process of sharing beloved childhood books with the next generation.
As someone who found great meaning in Kurshan’s first book – If All The Seas Were Ink -I was excited for Children of the Book. Once I dove in, I could tell immediately it featured the same erudition – I had to crack open a dictionary at least five times during the reading – but it lacked some of the personal touch of Kurshan’s prior work. That is understandable, because this time around Kurshan is not just writing about herself. She’s writing about her kids. She needs to lean a little sparse on the details in order to protect their privacy. It is an understandable concession, but it takes some of the oomph out of the prose.
Where the book is most successful – in my opinion – was the chapter on Vayikra in which the corona pandemic was compared to the Jews wandering the desert. I fully related to Kurshan running to the library right before lock down, while everyone else was probably running to the grocery store. And yes, books did save the sanity of my isolation pod (although in our case it was audiobooks). I also really loved her honesty – some of the books she read as a youth are not quite the utopias her rosy memories make them out to be. Indeed, her husband challenged her to read critical reviews about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the ‘Little House’ books so that she would know exactly what she was handing her children. I applaud both him and Kurshan for taking that critical look, rather than just glossing it over, and sharing that moment with us.
With five kids, it’s impossible not to note that every person will have their own taste. Or in the case of her twins, might need a series that belongs uniquely to them. For my own part, when Kurshan mentions The Giving Tree, I had a little laugh to myself. I absolutely hate that book and this aversion does not stem from my adult understanding of the complex dynamics of selfishness, parenting, or ecological forces that currently give me pause when I consider the story. I remember a teacher reading The Giving Tree out loud in school, and have a very visceral reaction. Mostly, I felt like I wanted to vomit and cry and hide under my desk. I was so distressed I could not focus for the rest of the day. From then on, whenever I was in a room with that book, I hid it beneath others so it could not distract me from afar. Yet here it was, listed as one of someone else’s favorites. Because we’re all different people, and we bring different things to the books we read, which by necessity means we will take different things from them too. Which is something I try to remind myself when I write these reviews. I’m just one woman, with one small opinion.
Children of the Book is a wonderful book for any bookish parent wondering where in the world the time for reading and writing went. It is also for people without children who want to recall those glorious reading days of their youth. Mostly, it’s for those among us who love reading and want to think about how to transmit this love to the next generation – even if they choose different books than we expect.
Note: BookishlyJewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we asked for one.
It’s that time of year again! When I try and convince you that every single person on your gifting list would benefit from receiving a Jewish book. Below you will find a curated list of books by category to help you find that special bookish something to gift your family and friends. These books do not all feature Hanukkah (although many of them do!). Instead they are books we think the given category of individual will enjoy, because we certainly did. They are meant to spark conversation between gifter and giftee, and to share the joy of reading. There’s even a few of the top books on OUR wish list in case anyone wants to send one over. Happy Hanukkah, and happy reading.
We love to open with the books that have gotten our page and social accounts the most hits this year. Most page views goes to The Baker of Lost Memories by Shirley Russak Wachtel, while the most commented upon post was The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. The post with the most shares was Ariel Kaplan’s fantasy The Pomegranate Gate, and most Instagram likes went to one of our most anticipated books this year – As A Jew by Sarah Hurwitz.
The joy of picture books is in reading them together. Curl up at night with the biographies of Bedtime Stories for Strong Jewish Girls by Melanie Goldberg Silver illustrated by Jess Goldsmith, light your menorah with Twinkle, Twinkle Hanukkah by Talia Benamy with art by Aura Lewis, make new Hanukkah friends with A Dragon Called Spark by Lily Murray illustrated by Kirsti Beautyman, and Hold your books tight with The Keeper of Stories by Caroline Kusin Pritchard and illustrated by Selina Alko.
We’re going for a double dose of fantasy for our middle graders, to pull in even the most reluctant readers. Golem Crafters by Emi Watanabe Cohen with a brother sister duo that have some unusual powers and Beinoni by Mari Lowe where the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of one bar mitzvah boy. For our more realistic fiction fans we’ve got Honey and Me by Meira Drazin giving a deep and nuanced picture of true friendship. Rounding it all out is Dara Horn and Theo Elssworth’s graphic novel One Little Goat that takes us through centuries of Passover seders.
Our Young Adult readers can travel back in time with Sacha Lamb’s fantasy The Forbidden Book, to another society with Andrea Max’s The Art of Exile, to college with Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Past Present Future, and to the unthinkable with Neal Shusterman and Andrés Vera Martínez’s Courage to Dream.
The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden is like four books in one, and I could not stop thinking about it for days. To regroup, I suggest Match Me If You Can where Heidi Shertok gives us another hilarious modern orthodox romance. Those of who grew up reading Maggie Anton were delighted that she turned to biblical fiction in her new book The Midwives Escape and The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso presents a fresh fantastical take on magical libraries.
It is impossible to speak of Jewish nonfiction without speaking about Eli Sharabi’s harrowing Hostage. For some historical context with a dash of humor, check out the Jews by Rob Kutner. Bookish parents will love Ilana Kurshan’s Children of the book and I found Gila Fine’s The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic completely transformed my personal relationship with the Talmud and Jewish study for the better.
We LOVE Cookbooks, and they make the best gifts. For a sense of gracious hospitality check out Eat Small Plates by Ben Siman-Tov and Ziki SIman-Tov. TO connect traditional food with modernity, we have Eat Jewish by Melinda Strauss. Travel the Jewish culinary World with Joan Nathan’s King Solomon’s Table and expand your kitchen borders with Beejhy Barhany and Elisa Ung’s Gursha.
It wouldn’t be a Hanukkah gift guide without a Hanukkah section. Although there are Hanukkah books sprinkled throughout, we thought we’d highlight a few. The Book of Candles by Laurel Snyder and illustrated by Leanne Hatch features gorgeous poetry for the whole family to enjoy. The Menorah Matchmaker by Amanda Usen continues one of our favorite series of adult Hanukkah romance. Let it Glow by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy has a set of twins finding their Hanukkah miracle and As If on Cue by Marisa Kanter gives the YA set a delightful Hanukkah high school romance in which we try to save the arts.
We are so proud and overwhelmed by the wave of Queer Jewish literature available. Again, there are queer stories sprinkled throughout, but we wanted to highlight some specially. JoyFul Song by Lesléa Newman and Susan Gal shows two moms naming their new baby, A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff has a trans middle grader saving the world, while YA D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O. A.T. by Abby White has a more personal take on grief and loss (and also features queer parents). For our adults we are going high heat with M.A. Wardell’s Husband of the Year.
Want to send us a book? Here are some ideas. We’d love a copy of Rembrandt Chooses a Queen by Deborah Bodin Cohen and Kerry Olitzky, illustrated by Cinzia Battistel. Our most hotly anticipated adult book coming up is Soon by You by Dahlia Adler while for middle grade we cannot wait to get our hands on The Tear Collector by R.M. Romero. How to pack of the End of the World Michelle Falkoff came out five years ago we are shocked we don’t own a copy.
We are also checking our mailboxes in the hopes that we get copies of Judaism Unbound edited by by Dan Libenson, and Lex Rofeberg. Russ & Daughters by Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper would be a wonderful addition to our kitchen shelves. And our dreams came true when we found The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah by Jean Meltzer did indeed arrive.
Parshat Lecha opens with a move – the title literally means ” go for yourself”. It’s a particularly meaty parsha, containing the confusing episode down in Egypt, the epic war of four against five kings, and Sarah’s struggle to bear children. I’m going to stick right with the intro, and talk about moving. In Judaism there is the concept that changing ones place changes ones luck. Certainly for Abram, Gods commandment to move does indeed spark a series of events that eventually leads to the formation of the Jewish People. However, the very first event after the move, is a famine which forces Abram and his family out of the land he was just instructed to move into. Sometimes, it can be hard to see the good in our situations.
The contemporary novel YA, D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. also opens with an unfortunate move. D.J. is forced to leave her best friend behind and move in with her Aunt and Uncle’s family so that she and her mom can help them recover from the death of D.J.’s cousin Rachel. Much like Abram, D.J. tries to see this move as an opportunity. She isn’t convinced that she has been told the truth about Rachel’s death, and she is determined to investigate. Now that she is living in Rachel’s house and town she hopes to discover what truly happened to he cousin. Also like Abram, things do not go as expected and D.J. must confront a whole lot of unpleasantness. Still, the result is a net positive.
When I am stuck, I contemplate if it is time for a move. Maybe not in physical location (although a walk outside often helps) but in mind set. Abram is asked to step outside his comfort zone to found the Jewish people. D.J. has to give up her cushy senior year in her hometown middle school in order to discover the truth about her cousin. Sometimes, we have to explore the unknown and the frightening, in order to move forward. Like trying to read the full Torah portion every week, no much how much the Hagar incident in this weeks text makes me squirm. I don’t understand it all, but I’m making progress. Thank you for coming along on the ride with me.
You’ll Do – A History of Marrying For Reasons Other Than Love
by: Marcia A. Zug
narrated by: Leigh Serling
January 9, 2024 Steerforth
336 pages
Every writer loves a wedding. Whether our medium is books, television, theater, or movies the drama of two people – two families! – joining together during one extremely overpriced party is hard to beat. Yet, as every writer also knows, the plot behind the plot is often where the real story lies. Love marriages are a relatively new concept, and even those often have other motives lying beneath the hearts and roses. In You’ll Do, author Marcia A. Zug chronicles a host of reasons other than love for which people have been marrying for centuries. The real life cases are often more compelling than fiction.
In the intro, and possibly most Jewish part of the book, Zug reveals that a family member of her own married in order to skirt immigration quotas and help another Jewish person escape Nazi Germany. The chapters that follow detail couples who married for money, child custody, inheritance, and yes immigration purposes. If this shocks you, I think you’ll find as you read the chapters that it should not. Instead, I am hoping your shock will turn towards the horrific laws like have made marriage often the only tool for safety and advancement available to many women and immigrants, and how the cult of love marriage has stripped even more rights away from these vulnerable populations.
There is one big caveat, which the author herself points out. Religious motivations for marriage are not covered in the book. Many people marry because they feel it is Gods will, or because they believe sex outside of marriage is a sin. I understand why religion was left off as a motivator, since the topic could span an entire book of its own, I simply hope Zug decides to make a companion book and cover the topic in it.
As you can tell from the title, You’ll Do, tackles a tricky topic with humor. The writing is clear and concise, and the examples really bring the topics home. I chose to listen to the book on audio and the narrator, Leigh Serling, has a nice smooth voice that keeps even the more boring topics interesting. It was a good match for my commute.
While we have come to think of anything but a love marriage as abusive, You’ll Do challenges us to rethink those thoughts, to judge less, and maybe look at our own notions of marriage with a more critical eye. As a writer, I can say it opened up about fifty more plot lines in the proverbial wedding setting. For this, I am grateful.
Parshat Noah is a writers dream. Among other adventures, we have the flood/ark drama, the Tower of Babel, and one very unfortunate drunken incident. Today, I’d like to focus on something small to learn something large. Most people know that Noah sent out a dove to ascertain if it was safe to leave the ark. Many also know that the dove returns with an olive branch. Fewer know that the olive branch trip was the second of three dove flyabouts, and actually the third bird reconnaissance mission. Before the dove, Noah sent the raven.
Ravens are birds often associated with darkness, death, and horror (thank you Edgar Allen Poe), but in Judaism there is a very special role for this bird of prey. In Sweet Malida, poet Zilka Joseph invites readers into the world of the Bene Israel Jews who have a special relationship with Elijah the prophet. She reminds readers that when Elijah was banished, it was the raven that fed him. She asks us to recall that every creature has its place. When the raven returns to the ark so quickly, it is not selected for the next mission, and several commentators ascribe it malevolent, jealous, motives. However, Aggadic Midrash states that when the raven returns to the ark until “the drying of the waters,” the Torah is telling us the raven was preparing for it’s true mission – feeding Elijah after he was banished for prophesying that there would be no rain, aka a drying of the waters.
I like to think the story of the raven is reminding us to be generous with our fellow man and ourselves. Everyone has a purpose, we simply are sometimes sent on a mission that does not suite us. If we take our cues from the raven, and instead of giving up, we hold ourselves ready, then when the right mission comes along we will grasp the opportunity. We also won’t judge our colleagues as inconsequential to the story. We all have a part to play, we simply don’t know if it’s in the intro, middle, or conclusion of the story.
You’ll have to forgive me for being a little late with this post. I couldn’t gather my list and get everything together until October. The good news? Most of these books are available for purchase right now!
A debut is a wonderful moment for a writer, but it is also incredibly stressful. In today’s climate, there is less and less opportunity to grow over the course of a career. If you want to ensure Jewish writers continue to be able to publish stories, then please consider supporting them – especially debuts. Before we get to the list, here are some suggestions for how to help out a debut. Many are free! And if you have a debut book coming out in 2026 please do let us know.
The most important way to help is buying or pre-ordering the books. Sales are often used by publishers to determine if an author can publish a second book with them. Out of cash? Library requests are free, and they too can help towards sales. Actually reading the book – and then posting a review on major review or sales website – is also critical for a book to find its audience. Did you love the book? Tell your friends! Follow the authors that resonate with you on social media or through their newsletters. Boost a post or two. Attend a local event. You have no idea how much this means to the authors who are shaking with trepidation that nobody will show up to their signing. Even if you hate a book – please be kind. Someone put their heart and soul into making this art. I put together these round up posts in the spirit of ahavat chinam – loving my fellow Jew no matter who they are or if I know them or not. I’d ask you to keep that spirit alive.
For the purposes of this post, a 2025 Jewish Debut is an author who identifies as Jewish and has their first book coming out in the 2025 calendar year. Unlike the rest of the website, for this post, the book does not need to contain Jewish content. I haven’t read them all (although I have read some, and they were great!!). The only other criteria for inclusion was that someone thought to inform me about the above criteria being met. I can’t promote you if I don’t know about you! So if you belong on this list, shoot me a message. If you qualify for 2026, let me know. Maybe next year I can get the post up before the year is almost over.
Without further ado: HERE COME THE 2025 JEWISH DEBUT BOOKS (in alphabetical order)
Acts Of Lovingkindess
by: Nina Kentsis
February 22, 2025 Porter Place publishing
Francie Baum was hoping that turning seventeen would bring some changes, but maybe not so many all at once: a cute new boyfriend from the neighboring school, a shaking up of her once-solid friend group, extra homework from her Hebrew teacher, and, more worrisome, her older brother’s ongoing refusal to return to rehab. She didn’t realize senior year of high school would be this complicated.
As she edges closer to college and the uncertainty of the future, Francie must figure out how to navigate all this and more, demonstrating how acts of lovingkindness have the power to mend even the deepest fractures.
Alice Rue has never spoken to her longtime crush Nolan Altman, but after she saves his life, the EMTs tell his family that Alice is Nolan’s girlfriend. She wants to set the record straight, but Nolan’s in a coma, and if the family feels comforted by the idea of Nolan having his “girlfriend” by his side for what might be his last moments, isn’t it kinder to go along with it? At least for now?
The Altmans are impossibly nice and supportive, and there’s something about Nolan’s sister Van that makes Alice feel more seen and understood than she has in years. She knows it’s wrong to lie, but it’s easy to convince herself that she’s doing the right thing by evading the truth.
But what she can’t avoid is her growing chemistry with Van. Alice must decide if she can unravel this tangle of lies to salvage her chances with the woman who just may be the love of her life—especially if Nolan wakes up.
Unlike the high-achieving members of her family’s secret society, Ada Castle has mastered nothing but the art of falling for the wrong guys. But now she finally has the chance to prove her worth: she just needs to gain access to a hidden school that her family has been trying to locate for generations. Granted, she accidentally goes on a date with the recruiter first, then is temporarily abducted, but Ada manages to secure herself an invitation to the Genesis Institute, where descendants of exiled Renaissance masters practice long-lost arts and sciences.
The school is a utopia of sustainable technology, medical advancements, and myths come to life, yet they are unjustly hoarding their resources. Ada goes undercover to steal their innovations for the rest of the world, but Genesis nurtures her creativity and challenges her views, and she can’t help but fall for the school…and maybe also for her frustratingly off-limits recruiter-turned-mentor.
Ada’s tangle of lies starts to unravel when one of her new friends goes missing. To rescue her, Ada is forced to work with a dangerous (and dangerously hot) classmate whose suspicions threaten her cover. And when the information she’s shared with her family puts her missing friend and all of Genesis in peril, she’ll have to choose whom to betray: the family she loves or the school that has helped her find herself.
When Cy Adler dies, it’s a shock to everyone, especially his daughter, Cammy. Almost thirty, slightly aimless, and stuck in a basement apartment in Queens, she’s forced to return to River Hill, her one-square-mile New Jersey hometown, to sit shiva. Cammy’s fraught relationship with her mother, Beth, has never been easy. And now, with her beloved father gone, she would rather be anywhere but back in her childhood room, in a house filled with guests noshing on snacks and offering their condolences. So Cammy does whatever she can to make it through seven turbulent days of mourning.
Amid getting stoned, reconnecting with her best friend and her high school crush, evading the rabbi, and spending a debauched night in Atlantic City, Cammy must reckon with her roots—with the place she fled for the glamour of New York, where she thought she belonged. But is she really any better off than those she left behind? While navigating the swirl of emotions that accompany grief, Cammy also uncovers hidden truths about her father, which lead her to doubt how well she knew the man she adored. Then again, does she even know herself?
It’s the beginning of the school year—and Briar’s newest resident, D.J. Rosenblum, is not here for it. Ever since her cousin Rachel died, D.J.’s family has been a mess: Her aunt and uncle are catatonic. Her mom is even more scatterbrained than usual. She had to postpone her bat mitzvah a whole year. Worst of all, she and her mom had to move—leaving her best friend, Eva, behind.
Briar does have one redeeming factor, though: Here, in Rachel’s hometown, D.J. can finally get to the bottom of her cousin’s death. With the help of a chatty journalist and a queen-bee hacker, D.J. can fill in the last days of Rachel’s life. And if she can just figure out her Torah portion—with help from her cute tutor, Jonah—maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to solve a bigger mystery.
Psalome Shipmen is a Dazzler, a hostess working on the gaming floors of The Elysium, the galaxy’s most decadent space casino. But she is also a prisoner to the debt she inherited from her deadbeat father, with years of service ahead of her until she can earn her way out.
Kiyokimora GoldWeaver is a disgraced heiress looking to rescue her family business with an audacious scheme to rob the casino. To pull it off, she needs Psalome on board. When they team up, it looks like a simple job – until Psalome meets Ilaria, the jewel in Kiyo’s master plan, and sparks begin to fly.
With a recovering alcoholic card counter and Psalome’s little sister – who happens to be dating The Elysium’s artificial intelligence – as part of the crew, they might still beat the odds… or learn that the house always wins.
Merriment Feast’s life is one constant party, complete with dazzling gowns and delicious pastries. Everything is perfect…except for her aunt’s physically grueling training. Merri believes it’s her responsibility to protect her family’s traditions and the power they’ve held for generations.
Rue Famine knows that only Feasts benefit from Feast rule. As the heir of House Famine, she spends her days studying potion-making in an enormous, dusty library and learning how to use her magic to help others.
Custom dictates that the heirs of Feast and Famine must duel on their thirteenth birthday. Only one family can rule the land of Fauret, and Merri and Rue have been raised as rivals.
But as the contest draws near and dangers escalate, their true enemy may be a shared one…
This funny mother-daughter caper story stars 73-year-old, overweight former beauty, Aurora, who is a perpetually broke, eccentric divorcee living in the wealthy enclave of Marin County. When Aurora discovers her father’s widow has died, she decides to drive to Los Angeles to see if this means money for her.
Enter Aurora’s high-strung and estranged daughter, 43-year-old Leyla, who spends her days keeping up with the other Marin uber-moms, manically pursuing perfection. When she overhears a conversation and suspects her husband is embarking on an affair, she decides to sneak into a Cannabis business conference he is attending, also in LA, to spy on him.
Aurora and Leyla’s separate quests simultaneously intersect and enmesh in Los Angeles over the course of a weekend provoking hijinks and chaos, and yes, even some healing.
Azrael Ashmedai Hart must be cursed. He’s a witch twice named for the devil. He’s making his way back to his family manor in Hallowcross after a failed screenwriting career. He’s adopted a cat he’s allergic to, and if all of that is not enough, he’s also forced to come face-to-face with his childhood best friend and former crush.
Victoria Starnberger, the bubbly girl-next-door Az lost touch with after an awkward incident in college, has just been disowned by her parents for quitting business school and buying Azrael’s late parents’ Hopelessly Teavoted tea shop against their wishes. Being cut off financially is one thing. But, now Vickie also owes a lesser devil for the souls her parents promised him in exchange for her gift to summon the dead by touching something they treasured in life, destroying the object in the process.
When spirits all over town, including Az’s parents, keeping warning her about a sinister threat, Vickie and Az are forced to combine their powers to save the Hallowcross. But to do so, they must prevent her magic from immolating him after Vickie’s devil places a curse on them to keep them from touching until she repays her debt. As they race against the clock to find clever ways around their curse, they find it increasingly harder to deny that they’ve been hopelessly devoted to each other all along.
As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the wood’s curse has plagued her village, but the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to protect heretics with false stories of monsters in the trees. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings the monster out, he will spare her mother from execution.
When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill a promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.
But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save―and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.
From the Boston Tea Party to the Capitol Crawl, inspire young activists in this bold nonfiction picture book that explores 25 moments of protest, resistance and revolution throughout American history. In a powerful celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday, teach kids how we campaign and vote. We challenge tradition. Protest is American by definition!
Dr. Ben Friedman’s mental health clinic, The Well Space, has helped hundreds of patients with mental health issues live better lives. But Ben doesn’t need any help for himself. He’s got it all under control, even though he suffers from worsening panic attacks and hasn’t been to the office in a month.
Florist delivery driver Nell uses her green thumb and sheer optimism to get by, but under the surface, her roots are withering. The rent is late, her son is sick, and to top it all off, she woke up to an eviction notice. When she knocks on the wrong door and drops her flower arrangement, it’s just one more mistake to smooth over with a smile. But the grumpy, formally dressed man at the door sees right through her cheerful front.
An unexpected connection sparks between them as Nell helps Ben through a panic attack on his porch. To thank her, Ben orders flowers for every patient in his practice. Nell agrees to deliver them—but only if he comes along for the ride. A blossoming attraction in the florist delivery van leads them to try a three-week trial run for dating. Three weeks to see if Ben can step out of his comfort zone, and if Nell can overcome her painful past and nourish her long-forgotten goals.
From lighting the menorah and spinning the dreidel, to eating latkes and frying sufganiyot in oil, this book would be the perfect holiday gift to teach kids about the many traditions of Hanukkah. It’s sure to be a latke fun for the whole family!
Welcome to the brain of Matt Check. Here you’ll find thoughts of bluegrass music, unrequited love, modern-day Nazis and uncircumcised penises. “Ugh, smegma,” as he likes to say.
Matt’s goal? To make a life for himself in New York City, land the perfect banjo lick, and find love along the way. Bonus points if he can succeed in making his father proud.
