Every year there’s a cookbook I post without having tried even a single recipe. Not because they don’t look good, but because the recipes are almost besides the point. This year, that book is Joan Nathan’s My Life In Recipes. While the book does indeed contain recipes – and really nice photos! – each one is preceded by a discussion of the period in Nathan’s life when she first encountered or cooked that food. Some are family recipes brought from the old country including tales of her parents lives, and some are from her own adventures. Either way, this is a genealogy, a memoir, and a food travel novel all wrapped in one.
If you’ve ever wondered about the person behind the recipes, this is the book for you. Joan Nathan is an award winning cookbook author, but she herself states that this is the book most personal to her. Not only is there gorgeous food photography, there’s also photos of her family’s past. We move with her through time and our palettes take a tour from Hungarian Chicken Livers to Rhubarb Torte.
I felt like Nathan’s family was my family, the food she loves, my food. (OK maybe not the chicken livers. I’ve never been a fan of organ meats). The Passover section was particularly robust, and the pandemic and coming back to life after mourning sections were particularly poignant.
You don’t have to enjoy cooking to enjoy My Life In Recipes. You also don’t have to be Jewish. You just need a love of history, of tying a person to their cultural milieu, and using all your senses to remember your past.
Note: BookishlyJewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we asked for one.
As a Brooklyn kind of girl, I’ve always felt a pull towards Chanie Apfelbaum and her ‘Busy In Brooklyn’ social media posts and recipes. (Even once when there was a mistaken post, that was quickly removed, I understood within five seconds how it had happened because it reminded me so much of my relatives.) So when I saw she had released a second cookbook, Totally Kosher, I was excited to test it out.
The first thing I noticed is that while her first book proclaimed it’s modernity right from the title page, this sophomore effort was the one that really glomed on to trends in the kosher food scene. Boards of all types have exploded across simchot and social media recently, and Totally Kosher has an entire instructional section on different types of boards and how to arrange them. if you’re challenged by the visual arts and food presentation in the way I am, you’ll appreciate the step by step.
There was also the notable trend of Jews from Ashkenaz backgrounds embracing more global foods. While she jokingly refers to herself as an “ashkie,” I noted Chanie using more Sephardic ingredients and dishes, although in the case of the kanaffeh pancakes she went for the one thing I dislike in Syrian cooking – the rose water. If you, like me, find it overpowering and reminiscent of eating a bouquet, just leave off the rose water. There was even a take on Georgian food (I won’t list the recipe, so you can see if you find it).
What drew me in most though, was the warmth in the photos of the Apfelbaum family. I realize that the photo of Chanie in a full sheitel and makeup sipping some kind of white wine while grilling is likely not representative of a typical day. The Shabbat photos would obviously have been staged on a non-Shabbat day – because orthodox Jews don’t use cameras on Shabbat an would likely not want a film crew there either. However, when you see these kids sitting at the dinner table you see a visual depiction of Jewish love – they come in all shapes and sizes and they are expressing how they care for one another through the sharing of food. And Chanie is honest – her post that got the most likes? a fancy tuna bagel of all things! Because you don’t need to look a certain way or spend a super huge amount of money to feed those you love – including yourself. This ethos gets to the heart of one reason I love Jewish cookbooks. They allow us to see and be seen through the miracle of a shared meal.
I flagged the most recipes recipes by far in the dessert section. (This is typical for me). I was slightly disappointed by the first recipe I tried – homemade bissli because I absolutely love bissli and was super excited to try and make it myself. That’s OK, it is probably the delicious chemicals that I really should not be eating anyway, in the store bought version that make me love it so much. Thumbing through the pages has brought me inspiration and joy. I’ll probably try my hand at one of these newfangled boards when next I have company over. Come experience Orthodox Judaism through our food. We have a chair for you.
Note – Bookishlyjewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we requested on.
When writing my May 1, 2025 historical fiction, “Go On Pretending,” I needed some feedback from my teen-aged daughter. I told her, “Can you pretend to be the child of a Russian-Jewish soap-opera writer and a highly educated Black man who grew up in Harlem?”
She scrunched her forehead, pressed her fingers to her temples, then opened her eyes and announced, “I think I can do that.”
That’s not so easy this time around. I was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in what was then the Soviet Union. I have worked for soap-operas like “All My Children,” “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” My husband grew up in Harlem and attended the highly selective Stuyvesant High School, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
I would like to say at this time that “Go On Pretending’s” Rose and Jonas are not based on my husband and I – completely.
For one thing, the story is set in 1950s America, before Loving v. Virginia, the ruling which legalized interracial marriage, became the law of the land. For another, Jonas went to Columbia University, and is an actor. My husband is a teacher. Finally, Rose is the writer of a “Guiding Light” radio spin-off, “Find Your Light.” I wrote the “Guiding Light” tie-in novel, “Jonathan’s Story.” So, you see, we are totally different!
“Go On Pretending” is currently available for pre-order. In this excerpt exclusive to Bookishly Jewish, Rose and Jonas are both looking for work, having been fired from “The Guiding Light” for reasons you’ll need to read the book to find out (yes, those reason are pretty much what you think they are). But that isn’t their only problem….
The author, Alina Adams, and her family.
Meanwhile, Rose and Jonas were facing a struggle of a different kind. Her going into WEVD every day and his continuing to audition for both radio and television roles had kept them busy enough that when they met up at either his apartment or hers at the end of the day it was still possible to pretend they were living separate lives. They’d stopped trying to find a spot they could go out to in the evening where they weren’t unwelcome or too slavishly welcomed in favor of nights spent at home. But now that Rose’s office was her dining room table and Jonas stopped by several times a day in between appointments, then often spent the night before heading out again, it was growing difficult to pretend that they weren’t, in fact, cohabitating – while continuing to pay rent on two separate domiciles. A situation neither was comfortable with. Not due to living in sin. Due to wasting money. Something two currently unemployed people should be attempting to do less of.
“The practical thing to do,” Rose said, “would be to give up one of our apartments, or both, and find a new place.”
“The practical thing to do,” Jonas said, “would be to get married.”
“Well, yes, obviously,” Rose dismissed and attempted to hurry onto the next topic, as if a proposal – unconventional; then again, what about her and Jonas was conventional save for everything… and nothing? – was just another item on a list of viable suggestions. “But, as my mother loves to say, a fish may fall in love with a bird, except where would they live? Especially in New York City.”
Jonas wouldn’t let her get away with it. She could pretend that being fired from a job she loved didn’t bother her by diving immediately into the next project. She could pretend that having a script she’d labored over for close to a year dismissed didn’t bother her by instantly deciding to rewrite it as a play. But she was not going to pretend that what he’d asked her didn’t matter by jabbering about the state of Manhattan real estate. Though, yes, he did see how it was relevant to their discussion. Manhattan real estate was relevant to any discussion. Even to people who didn’t live in Manhattan.
“Rose.” He grabbed her hand as she was turning away, forcing her to look at him. “Are you in love with me?”
“Like a fish loves a bird,” she all but twittered.
“Rose.” Jonas refused to let go of her hand. He cupped it between his palms, brought it to his mouth and kissed each knuckle, refusing to break eye contact as he repeated, “Are… you… in… love… with… me?”
The voice that had snared her, the gaze that compelled her, the question that broke her. Rose couldn’t speak. She could only nod in reply.
And then that smile. If she’d been weak before, she was helpless now.
“Do you want to marry me?”
Another nod. Because ‘yes’ was too feeble a word to encompass everything Rose longed to convey.
He pulled her closer to him, so that not only their hands but their noses and foreheads were touching. She breathed in when he breathed out, his lips were close, so tantalizingly close, but he was still talking. Which he was also quite good at. “Then we’ll get married.” Rose opened her mouth to protest. Jonas cut her off. “And we’ll find a place to rent, and we’ll find a place to eat dinner, and we’ll find a place to stage your play – “
“Our play.” Jonas could render her speechless on a personal basis. She always knew what to say when it came to the professional.
“Our play,” he agreed. “We’ll find a place to live happily ever after. You wouldn’t write it any other way.”
While they were pretending they were living separate lives, it was easy to pretend their relationship was nobody’s business. But now that Rose was wearing a ring Jonas bought her and they were searching The New York Times daily to see if they could read between the lines and identify a building open to renting to an unorthodox couple, it was growing more difficult to pretend they could keep their secret indefinitely. A situation neither was comfortable with.
“I suppose we’ll have to tell our parents,” Rose said. Which was ridiculous when you thought about it. She and Jonas weren’t children, they were in their thirties. They didn’t need their parents’ permission, or their blessing, or their financial support. But they also hated lying.
It was easier for Rose. Now that she’d reached official spinster age, Mama has stopped asking about romantic prospects, and dedicated herself to worrying that, after foolishly quitting her job at Find Your Light and obviously doing something equally foolish to lose her position at WEVD, Rose was going to become destitute and die alone in a flop-house.
Jonas’ parents, on the other hand, continued introducing him to admittedly beautiful, admittedly accomplished, admittedly available young women. The way Jonas described them, Rose could see why his family couldn’t understand his lack of interest.
“They’re all so… perfect,” Jonas said.
“Unlike me?” Rose wasn’t sure if she was fishing for compliments.
“Unlike you,” he agreed. And the way he said it made it clear he was giving her one.
“I suppose we’ll have to tell our parents,” Rose sighed.
They decided to start with his. They decided Geoffrey and Annabelle Moore – Jonas had changed his last name professionally so as not to embarrass the family, and chosen Cain as a sly biblical reference, the sign of God’s protection – were less likely to grow hysterical at the news. It would be good practice for facing Rose’s mother, who she feared would.
Rose and Jonas spent a delightful evening at his parents’ Hamilton Heights townhouse. The Moores took her on a tour, highlighting the individual rooms done in baroque, romantic, and neoclassical styles; wingback chairs, chesterfield sofas, carved bookshelves, ornate drapes, Westwood lamps, artwork by Romaere Bearden and Horace Pippin. Over dinner, Jonas’ father talked about authors he’d edited. His mother spoke about working as a translator at the United Nations – French to English. They asked Rose about her days at Find Your Light and seemed genuinely curious about her ideas for modernizing Othello, even making a small pun about their last name and the title character.
At the end of the night, Geoffrey and Annabelle walked Jonas and Rose to the door. His father shook her hand. His mother kissed her on the cheek.
“You are absolutely delightful,” his father said.
“So intelligent,” his mother said.
“So talented.”
“So elegant.”
“No,” his father said.
“Absolutely not,” his mother reiterated.
Rose’s mother did not grow hysterical when she met Jonas. There was no lovely town- house to give him a tour of, but Mama made up for it with the dinner she served. Chicken soup, potato kugel, beef brisket and rugelach for dessert. She explained to Jonas, in detail, how each dish was made, how her grandmother made it in the old country, including the substitutions they were forced to go with here since food just didn’t taste the same, she didn’t know why. Jonas complimented Mama on every course and agreed it was a mystery about the different tastes in America. He told stories about traveling to Chicago, to Atlanta, to San Francisco, to Houston and, wouldn’t you know it, foods with the same ingredients did have different flavors! Baffling!
At the end of the night, Mama walked Jonas and Rose to the door. She gave him a hug.
“Such a gentleman,” Mama said. “So well-read, so well-raised.” She turned to Rose and told her, “Absolutely not.”
“That went very well,” Jonas strove for the joke when Rose, for the first time since he’d met her, seemed unable to summon up the energy to deal with setbacks by bolting towards the next plan of attack.
I love placing Jews in unanticipated milieu. It challenges readers to reassess their internalized stereotypes and also opens up a whole host of narrative questions. In my case, it’s usually some place in space. For Laurie Schneider’s MG historical novel Gittel, the title character is a Jewish young woman in 1911 Wisconsin. While most people think of Jews in typically large enclaves like those found in NY and California, we’re actually far more spread out than that. And in the early 1900’s, when fleeing pogroms and persecution, Jews wound up all over the globe. Including Wisconsin, where they learned to farm despite previously holding very different occupations.
Gittel’s town is by and large welcoming, but Gittel faces one particularly nasty bully, who seems jealous over her ability to succeed and determined to torture her. Gittel’s family encourages her to take the high road, but the reader often agrees with Gittel that sometimes a little defense is necessary when someone just won’t stop picking on you. In the end, we get to see Gittel working out the correct combination of these methods for herself.
Indeed, many of the problems Gittel faces are highly nuanced. For one, she’s probably the smartest kid in town but as a girl she’s not likely to get much education. As it is, many of the boys are not sent for further schooling once they graduate their one room elementary schoolhouse. A girl? Chances are slim to none. Plus, while all the other girls in town are harboring crushes and starting to date, Gittel’s options are limited by both her oversize personality and the fact that most of the Jewish families that came to Mill Creek Wisconsin at the same time as hers are moving away to bigger cities. She’s not sure how her family will feel about her courting with a non-Jew, and the issue becomes rather pressing as the local dairy farmer’s son doesn’t seem to mind girls who are smart and is very handsome.
The book is full of interesting period details, including how everyday tasks were performed, but also more exciting events like a traveling performance in which Gittel is allowed to recite a poem. There are such difficult questions as whether or not it is right for a Jew to sing in the school Christmas pageant (Lord knows some of us are still facing that dilemma) even if this is the only avenue to explore ones talents, and whether we can count it as women’s liberation that a girl might be allowed to head to high school in order to keep her from her non-Jewish boyfriend. But most importantly for me – how in the world is the absolutely gorgeous girl on the cover of Gittel with the stunning mane of hair the same girl all the adults in the book perpetually moan has a lack of good looks and inability to keep her hair in order?
In all seriousness, Gittel is a good draw for kids who like learning about different times, want to see how a Jew might have lived a very different life from their own (or a very similar one! Remember we’re still found on farms even today), and how the answer to life’s questions are never as simple as we wish they were.
Note: BookishlyJewish received an ARC of this book from the author.
There’s a common phrase told to writer’s to make us feel better about the vagaries of publishing- 90% of this industry is luck. Indeed, you hear people joking about their “overnight success” story that only took 15 years of submissions. Which is why the title of Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When The Luck Happens, really hits home. Especially when she explains its provenance in the last chapter. Yes, there is an element of luck involved, but that doesn’t negate the years of preparation that go into making sure one is ready to take advantage of that luck when it happens. Nobody succeeds on luck alone. If I can’t write, or if Ina couldn’t cook, neither one of us would generate many sales.
Reading Ina’s story, I was most intrigued by how the Jewish concept of chutzpah propelled her to success. Many people view chutzpah in a negative sense – refusing to bow to authority or being disrespectful – but in Judaism there are no wholly negative character traits. There are simply aspects of ourselves that we must channel for the greater good rather than using them for the bad. In the case of chutzpah, this means not accepting societal injustice simply because that’s the way it always has been, and not turning down opportunity just because one is scared. When I read about how bank managers wouldn’t count Ina’s income on a mortgage application because they assumed all women have babies and stop working, I knew this was a place for Chutzpah- and so did Ina. In this, and many similar incidents, she found a way to work around unfair obstacles.
She also jumped in head first to a variety of business ventures that would have scared the living daylights of me. I would spend at least 6 months drawing up spreadsheets, consulting with friends, and dithering. Not Ina Garten. Even when things didn’t work out, she managed to get out intact and learn important lessons. Where I would mope and rehash things over and over, she moved on wiser and stronger. I hope to take those ideas forward with me.
Life was not perfect for Ina, her early childhood sounds rough, but she always managed to find a way to move forward and find the positive. While appreciating Ina’s negotiating style – she uses to empathy to think about what the other person will need out of the negotiation – I was surprised to see her state she learned this from her father. To say their relationship was rocky is an understatement. Yet still, she heard the value in what he had to say. The same thing happened when a famous artist criticized her book layout. From each interaction she took the valuable insights, but then stuck to her vision. It displays a generosity and openness that can only be born from confidence.
At the heart of Be Ready When The Luck Happens is Ina’s relationship with her husband, which is an epic love story, but one that had to grow as Ina herself changed. It was truly remarkable to see the love and support her spouse offered her throughout, but also how they each bent over backwards to find out how to accommodate the other without giving up their own dreams. Ina is very candid about the work they had to put in to their relationship, and why a person that always gives off such a strong comfort/mother vibe to me – never wanted to have children. As she says – no one was doing anything wrong, yet still they needed to work on their marriage. And the result of that work was a beautiful life spent together as equals.
Be Ready When The Luck Happens is by no means a kosher cooking story. The recipes interspersed throughout include pork and shellfish. But the ethos here is so very Jewish. To move forward in life confidently, with compassion for those around you, being honest to your vision.
By: Ruth Spiro, Illustrated by: Victoria Tentler-Krylov
August 27, 2024 Dial Books
40 pages
There is a lot broken in the world today, but for Jewish people that just means there’s more for us to fix. The concept of Tikkun Olam was not unfamiliar to me growing up, but it didn’t receive nearly as much focus in my particular upbringing as it does in many other forms of Judaism. It wasn’t until I was an author that I both rediscovered the concept and found personal meaning it. Kids today don’t need to worry – because a whole host of books are here to show them the beauty of Tikkun Olam. Books like One Small Spark, written by Ruth Spiro and illustrated by Victoria Tentler-Krylov.
Most kids I know love the playground. Which is why all the ones that I test drove One Small Spark with were immediately focused on the broken swing. Through each page, they tracked that swing just as much as they tracked the fun colors spreading from person to person as the joy of repairing that which is broken leaped through the neighborhood.
Smaller kids were laser focused on the swing set and when the little girl might get to use it, but older ones were genuinely intrigued by the communal repair project. Tikkun Olam tends to be popular, because it is one of the more feel good aspects of Judaism. Who doesn’t want to strive towards a harmonious world? But the work that it takes to get there is tough, and One Small Spark shows that real labor is needed, even if it is done with a smile. If we are to raise a generation taking up the hard work of fixing our world, I can think of no better way to start.
Note: BookishlyJewish received a copy of this book from the publisher
One of the reasons I became a science fiction writer was that I would dearly love to live on a planet other than Earth. I realize this is not a popular opinion, but as a Jew, I cannot help but look at centuries upon centuries of baseless persecution and hate and think I might be better off elsewhere. So I invent my own universes to inhabit (off world SFF or secondary fantasy are my faves). Which puts me in stark contrast to Judy Wallach-Stevens, heroine of Ruthanna Emrys’s queer norm, and deeply thoughtful, first contact novel, A Half-Built Garden. Judy’s roots grow deep into the Earth that she is trying to save and, unlike me, she has no interest in leaving despite offers of rescue from the aliens she inadvertently greets. Yet in our hearts, Judy and I share one crucial thing – we are both searching for ways to improve the future for humanity.
In Judy’s future, large corporations and governments have all been largely reduced to irrelevance by strong watershed networks of people who use mediation and collective decision making to steward the Earth and reverse climate change. It sounded idyllic until I found out these group decisions, which typically are subject to millions of confounding factors and are almost impossible to reach even on a much smaller scale, are made possible by use of dandelion networks. Each watershed has their own network on which members converse and share decision making by voting on various threads and questions. Their votes are given weight by an algorithm supposedly checking for their expertise and relevance on the topic as well as providing votes for what a tree, or river might want and need.
At this point, I remind readers the book was published in 2022 and written before some of our current AI and social media algorithm controversies reared their ugly heads. Right now, many of you might balk, as I do, at the idea that a computer algorithm should decide my future and how much worth my vote has compared to someone else’s – or compared to what its best guess for an inanimate object or force of nature’s vote might be. That’s a hard no from me, due to a significant amount of paranoia that has unfortunately proved to be founded in reality – which is why one of the novels biggest surprises came as no surprise at all to me. In fact I wondered for many chapters why nobody had figured it out yet. Because alas, humanity has proven itself just as devious as Emrys’s imagination suggested we could be, and AI and other advanced computer tools just as dangerous.
The story was still compelling, even if I don’t think such a universe would be a utopia. Our alien “saviors” have some interesting ideas about government and social hierarchies- namely that women (they define this strictly as those that actually bear children or lay eggs or whatever species equivalent there is) are actually the dominant member of the species and take all leadership roles. Which is why Judy, and my closest counterpart in the book – Viola St. Julien, employee of a long defunct NASA now thrust into the limelight – find themselves drafted as alien emissaries despite their complete and utter lack of training. They bore kids, which means the alien leaders are willing to talk with them. In addition, the aliens wonder why there are so few children in our media. Indeed aliens – this is a great question! A Half-Built Garden by necessity breaks that mold. When children are diplomatic props there ensues a large focus on child rearing, breast feeding, and even alternative parenting arrangements in a queer norm future. I was here for this!
Other things I was here for were the alternative gender presentations. The queer norm future of the watersheds allows for trans people to exist in much safer ways than they currently do, and pronoun badges are laid out at the front door like wine glass holders. Normal, expected, nothing of note. While this causes some very deep discussion between Judy’s household members on what to do with the aliens who have a stricter sense of gender roles, it was actually not my favorite form of gender displayed in the book. It is not a spoiler to say that corporations are the big bad in this future, and yet I found their variety of gender choices to be completely and utterly liberating. In the corporate world, members choose from a variety of gender presentations, can swap them out as easily as they can the clothes that signal to others what one is playing at any given moment, and they leave all of that at the office when they go home. When one intern attempts to explain it all to the confused watershed visitors, they say “I wouldn’t want to walk around with my soul on my collar, either. Here, my hormones are my doctor’s business. The shape of my body under my clothes is my lovers.’ … My true self, assuming I admit to having one, is for me alone.” I understand that for some people this would be a regression in rights they have fought for, for others a selfish or scared way to live, but for me it was like finally breathing again after being held underwater for ages. Why is it anyone elses’ business? Why can’t I be all and none if that is my desire? And shouldn’t we all get to chose which world we’d rather inhabit and who we’d prefer to share with? Which is another basic question lying at the heart of the book – why is it always one or the other, yes or no, with no room for “both.”
Yes, I know that was a deeply bisexual thing to say. I am a meme. I take no shame in it. “Both” will always be my answer.
Mediation between opposing factions is shown in fine form here, and it was best when the computer systems were entirely unavailable and a human had to step in and work through the process with both human and alien manually. It was brutal in the honesty it demanded, the forbearance in the face of insults and harm was monumental, and yet it was a thing of beauty to watch. The result – a shared decision based on values – was a testament to owning what we all truly want and need from a situation.
In that way, A Half-Built Garden is a deeply Jewish book. There are some Jewish holidays and traditions featured (Shabbat, kosher, and Passover to name a few) but also a very Jewish value system for Judy, and a fun set of offhand comments that set her well within her cultural inheritance. To opt out of an alien ceremony because she would like to consult a Rabbi first to ensure she is not the laughingstock of future iterations of Talmud scholars was a very, very Jewish neuroses to bring into the moment. I feel you Judy.
In keeping with some of my other reviews that include heat levels, I feel I should mention there is some alien sex in here. It’s mostly closed door, and honestly kind of hilarious, but if that’s not your thing just skip those couple of pages. This isn’t a romance novel. You’ll survive even if you hate romance novels. I promise.
I’m still not ready to let a computer have that much power over my life or my election options, I am more likely to find myself akin to where Viola St. Julien and NASA wound up at the end of the book than where Judy did, but I can see how this future might inspire admiration. Might make someone else want to stick to the Earth that has drank so much of my ancestors blood as humanity committed unspeakable violence upon each other and the soil we live on. A Half-Built Garden is a story of differing perspectives, and of hope, which I think is universal to us all. No matter what planet we wind up on.
“A story is a ship that takes passengers where they don’t know they are going,” says one character, a grandiose, young aspiring writer, in what could be a description of the collection Dying Man, Dead Mouse: a ship of fools whose passengers obsessively recount their agonies or deceptions or betrayals or quarrels with God. This is a book that will take you to places you don’t know you are going. That is the thrill of reading it. Don’t be put off by the tile; this collection of stories about death and dying is full of life.
Take for example the titular novella, Dying Man, the story of a hopelessly depressed 50 year-old academic named Issac Teppel with three PhD’s but not an ounce of sense who lives with his unflappable, ever resourceful Rebbitsin mother; she is determined to get him to rise not only out of his bed but to find him a wife to start a family! A strange stand-off between mother and son commences: Issac stubbornly refusing to leave his bed claiming he only wants to die, and the Rebbetsin’s ingenious series of deceptions designed to con a cast of neighborhood characters, from the mailman to a group of senior citizens, into being Isaac’s unwilling and unwitting students. The characters who show up in Issac’s bedroom for schnaps, cake and a lecture are vividly and affectionately drawn, though neither their comical quibbling nor the creepy promise by one old man to fix up Issac with his granddaughter can get Issac to choose life. In the end a fan letter from a scholar who has fallen in love with Issac through his academic articles promises a happy ending, but the one Simckes gives us is not the one we hope for, but a more mysterious and transcendent Passepartout that serves to open doors to yet other unknown destinations in this short but miraculous book.
These stories chronicle a lost Jewish world with one foot in Eastern Europe and the other in modern America, a world of junk men, unravelin professors, afflicted therapists, psychiatric patients, betrayed rabbis, treacherous cantors. Shuttling between fiction, parable and midrash, the cast of Simckes’ stories include the biblical Job (who gets the once-over from a tough cop), a talking moose, a hapless undercover narc who brings his wife and infant disastrously to one of his stake-outs, not to mention all the humans and animals on Noah’s Ark (who debate whether to save a drowning creature excluded from the ship’s manifest), and last but not least, God and Satan. While some of these stories are deeply satisfying, others present a rich, fictional world only to abruptly shut it all down, their plots left unresolved, an eerie reminder of God’s own dissatisfaction with creation. This risky strategy rewards the reader not with plotting but with the ancient joy of surrendering to a narrative voice that can hold their audience in suspense with language that seems always in the process of invention, informed by abiding affection and horror for humanity. Simckes’ narrative voice is a unique and unforgettable blend of midrash and Franz Kafka.
This collection heralds the return to fiction of L.S. Simckes, author of two previous novels Seven Days of Mourning (Random House) and The Comatose Kids (Fiction Collective) after a long hiatus during which he was a playwright translator from Hebrew, family therapist and teacher of creative writing. The return is auspicious, and I hope it will lead to more.
Mark Andres is a visual artist, writer and animated filmmaker living in Portland, Oregon.
The reviewer received a free copy of this book from the author.
by: Lauria Wallmark nd Illustrated by Adelina Lirius
July 11, 2023 Random House Studio
40 pages
I was an unusual child. My friends had collections of all kinds of things – pogs, stickers, pokemon cards. Me? I was into office supplies. Which probably should have been a sign about my future in publishing. Nothing made me happier than being surrounded by post it notes and staplers. My favorite time of year was back to school – even when I grew up and was no longer attending school! Because all the wonderful school supplies were out in stores in fancy displays. Which is why I found it weirdly crushing when Rivka, main character of Rivka’s Presents written by Laurie Wallmark and illustrated by Adelina Lirius, finds out she cannot start school as planned.
Rivka is growing up in NY’s lower east side in the early 1900’s. Conditions are not great, and since her father is ill her mother must go to work to support the family. This means Rivka will stay at home to take care of her baby sister instead of starting school. I was slightly concerned that todays kids would not be as gutted as I was about this, because many of them would love to stay home from school, or that they would fail to relate to the level of responsibility falling to such a small child’s shoulders. I should not have been concerned. All the children I read the book with seemed to empathize with Rivka’s situation, even if such a sacrifice was beyond them. In fact, many said they would also watch their little siblings if their parents were sick, which I found very sweet.
Rivka is determined to learn, and she finds a way to do so by assisting various neighborhood business’s in exchange for lessons from their proprietors. The kids really enjoyed this resourcefulness. They also had a good time keeping track of the various neighborhood characters. he color scheme is a nice cross between somber and cheerful and the illustrations gave a goo sense of the passing of seasons.
Not a single one of the kids picked up on the fact that 1918 was when the large flu epidemic was going on, and that they recently went through a pandemic which kept them home from school as well. A fact that I found profoundly intriguing, since as an adult I couldn’t help but grasp those similarities and ponder the repetitive nature of history. I guess, like Rivka, kids today are resilient. Whether it’s zoom school or learning how to write from the green grocer, they find their own ways to deal with the reality in which they find themselves. Which also explains why they enjoyed reading about Rivka so much, even if they don’t share my stapler obsession.
Jews are known as “people of the book”, and as a lifelong reader, I can definitely say that the Torah, our book, has always featured prominently in my life. As a kid, I enjoyed hearing the weekly portion in Synagogue. It contained way more plot twists and shocking reveals than any novel or TV show. As a teen, I searched for meaning. As an adult, I wondered where all the women were – why my POV was not as represented as I would have chosen – and learned to distinguish between the actual text and the views superimposed upon it by commentators. It’s been a long, and sometimes troubled, relationship. Something always pulls me back, and each time I am surprised. Which is why I couldn’t resist The Midwives Escape by Maggie Anton.
Starting from the exodus, and spanning numerous books of the Torah including the beginning of Joshua, the novel tells the story of the forty years the Jews spent wandering in the dessert. However, the author is clear that this is simply a piece of well researched fiction. Numerous Torah portions are glossed over as they wouldn’t contribute much to plot, and the choice of POV is as essential here as it is for any piece of literature. The narrators are actually two Egyptian/Hittite women who were not Hebrews, but chose to leave Egypt with them anyway. This large group leaving Egypt together with the newly freed Hebrews is the subject of many a mysterious midrashic commentary on the Torah where they are referred to as the “erev Rav” (mixed multitude) and often blamed for numerous ills in the dessert.
Side note for the hilarity of one of the midwives bemoaning the tenth plague and wondering ‘what they ever did to the Hebrews’ to deserve this, when just a few lines up she notes her husband regularly sexually abused the slave women. What did we do indeed? (Turns out she’s just as happy to be rid of the guy as readers are, but still. Oblivious much?).
Underscoring the work of fiction aspect here, one of the midwives is named Shifra and her aunt, who is also a midwife, is named Puah. These names are given in the bible as the names of the midwives who refused Pharaoh’s orders to kill male Hebrew children. However, many Torah commentators state that these are aliases for the Hebrew women Miriam and Yocheved – Moses’ sister and mother. Did I mind? No, because there are about a million commentators, often contradictory, and as we said this is fiction. So again, I remind readers to treat this as a novel and not a religious text.
In general, the mixed multitude has a bad rap. They get blamed for a lot by commentators, including being a bad influence on the Hebrews and instigating numerous complaints and revolts. The Midwives’ Escape takes the opposite approach. The mixed multitude, are presented as so immaculate they are practically saints (if Judaism had saints, which it doesn’t). They look down at the Hebrews and are shocked each time they misbehave or fail to trust and Moses. They are depicted as having perfect faith. If I’m honest – and I always am – this got a little annoying. I suspect the real truth is somewhere in between these two extremes. Both groups likely had their malcontents and idol worshipers, and both groups were likely prejudiced each towards the other. It would have made for nuanced reading to acknowledge the complexity of human nature across both groups and allow that grey area to grow and blossom in ways that are so scarce in the actual bible.
Where the novel succeeds is not in providing new ideas about the mixed multitude, but rather in giving familiar stories an emotional frame on which to rest. The titular midwives are a mother and daughter, and their family dynamics grab the readers attention and let us view these happenings through an entirely different lens. Plus, as members of the mixed multitude, they allow us to observe the various cultures of the time, as well as the survival skills needed in the dessert – from how to press oil to birthing a baby. The details are rich and provide context for what exactly those forty years might have looked like. Another side bonus for including some of the wilder midrashim – like how each male dug his own grave on the ninth of Av and slept in it, unsure if he would wake up in the morning.
There are some interesting choices made regarding Moses, Aharon, and Miriam that mash together some more obscure commentaries with the authors own inventions. They help make the plot more emotionally relevant, and as a woman I enjoyed the greater focus given to Miriam, but this is not a strict textual reading. Remember the framework – fiction not biblical scholarship. If that is going to bother you, just pick a different book and let the rest of us enjoy the story in peace.
The Midwives’ Escape actually ends with a sample from the next book, and I am both more excited and more apprehensive about this next story. The narrator is one of my favorite biblical characters – Serach BaT Asher the woman who never dies – but it takes place during the book of Judges which I think we can all agree was a pretty messy time. I am hoping for just a tiny bit more kindness towards the newly settled Hebrews than we have seen in The Midwives Escape, but as any writer well knows, this is all a matter of point of view.
Note: BookishlyJewish received an arc of this publication from the publisher.
