OY! Is suffering part of the Jewish Experience? –
You betcha!
JOY! Is joy part of the
Jewish Experience? – You betcha!
What better way to capture
all the Oy and Joy than through reading a diverse selection of Jewish books? The
Fauquier Jewish Congregation, my congregation, has an active book club. Some
people cycle in and out depending on how busy their lives are. We’ve shared friendship, many meals and LOTS
of books over the past five years. This summer, (and the rest of the year) why
not sample books on Jewish themes, Jewish experiences, Jewish history, or
Jewish love stories? There are novels that read like history and history books that
read like fiction. Memoirs of Jews in far
away places like India, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Hungary, Argentina, England,
Maine, Germany, France, Spain and Virginia tell stories that couldn’t be made
up!
How can you up your Jewish
I.Q.? Literature and history are two of
the easiest and most satisfying ways. I hope you will take a look at some of what we have read. There is only one “stinker” in the list:
“Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean,” but we should have seen that one coming!
Some of our favorite fun reads were “SAVE THE DELI” and “OUTWITTING HISTORY”
and some of the most poignant, “THE INVISIBLE WALL”, “THE GIRL FROM FOREIGN”
and “MY FATHER’S PARADISE.” “START UP
NATION,” about Israel’s economic ingenuity, was a big hit, as was “THE GREAT
ESCAPE,” a story of nine Hungarian scientists who escaped to the US and changed
the face of American physics and science. “THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION” was
FABULOUS and INNOVATIVE… and best “read” as an audio book due to the fine
characterizations of the reader.
Our next two reads for July
and August are: “RAQUELA: A WOMAN OF ISRAEL” by Ruth Gruber and “THE INVISIBLE
BRIDGE” by Julie Orringer.
RAQUELA: A WOMAN OF ISRAEL - A National Jewish Book
Award–winning biography: A fascinating look at the early years of Israel’s
statehood, experienced through the life of a pioneering nurse. During her extraordinary career, nurse Raquela Prywes
was a witness to history. She delivered babies in a Holocaust refugee camp and
on the Israeli frontier. She crossed minefields to aid injured soldiers in the
1948 Israeli War of Independence, and organized hospitals to save the lives of
those fighting the 1967 Six-Day War. Along the way her own life was a series of
triumphs and tragedies mirroring those of the newly formed Jewish state.
Here is a partial list of
our reading from the past five years. Enjoy
your summer reading, and don’t forget the sunblock!
1. A Woman in Jerusalem – A.B. Yehoshua
2. Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of
the Chosen People – Jon Entine
3. Betraying Spinoza – Rebecca Goldstein
4.
Everything is
Illuminated: A Novel - Jonathan Safron Foer
5. In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an
American Family in Hitler’s Berlin – Erik Larson
6. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of
Swashbuckling Jews Carved out an Empire in the New World – Edward Kritzler
7. Leeway Cottage: A novel – Beth Gutcheon
8. Lest Innocent Blood be Shed – Philip Hallie
9. Miriam’s Kitchen – Elizabeth Ehrlich
10. My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Family’s
Past – Ariel Sabar
11. Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout
12. Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man
who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books – Aaron Lansky
13. Raquela: A Woman of Israel – Ruth Gruber
14. Rashi’s Daughter: A Novel of Love and the Talmud in
Medieval France – Maggie Anton
15. Sarah’s Key – Tatiana de Rosnay
16. Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty
Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen - David Sax
17. Saving Monticello: The Levy Family’s Epic Quest to
Rescue the House that Jefferson Built – Marc Leepson
18. Start Up Nation: The History of Israel’s Economic
Miracle – Dan Senor and Saul Singer
19. The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession and the
Pursuit of an Ancient Bible – Matti Friedman
20. The Bee Season – Myla Goldberg
21. The Book Thief – Markus Zisak
22. The Girl from Foreign: A Memoir - Sadia Shepard
23. The Great
Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler & Changed the World – Kati Marton
24. The Hare with the Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance –
Edmund de Waal
25. The Invisible Bridge – Julie Orringer
26. The Invisible Wall: A Love Story that Broke Barriers
– Harry Bernstein
27. The Jew Store – Stella Suberman
28. The Last Jew – by Noah Gordan
29. The Last Secret of the Temple – Paul Sussman
30. The Man in the While Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish
Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World – Lucette Lagnado
31. The Ministry of Special Cases – Nathan Englander
32. The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and
Dangerous Life – Tom Reiss
33. The Seventh Telling: The Kabbalah of Moshe Katan –
Mitchell Chefitz
34. The Virginia Plan: William Thalhimer and a Rescue
from Nazi Germany -Robert Gillette
35. The World to Come – Dara Horn
36. The Year of Living Biblically – A.J. Jacobs
37. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon
38. This is My God – Herman Wouk
39. Tiger in the Attic: Memories of the Kindertransport
& Growing Up English - Edith Milton
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Rose
