New Jewish Books
A Forgotten Satire of Yiddishe Mamas and Soviet Fools Stories of a bustling courtyard populated by hapless sages and wise young fools fill Moyshe Kulbak’s classic satirical novel of Soviet Minsk. It’s a compelling,...
In a complicated tale of family ties, old loves, and chutzpadik tourists, an Israeli granddaughter and grandmother set off for Warsaw to file a property restitution claim. It could read like a madcap adventure,...
After creating Schindler’s List, the film which is likely America’s—perhaps the world’s—surest narrative lifeline to the Holocaust, director Steven Spielberg began the daunting project of creating the Shoah Foundation, an archive of video testimonies...
Imagine, esteemed reader: Your son has recently arrived in America from your shtetl, and you want to warn him about the temptations of the goldene medina. But how do you find the right words...
Liana Finck’s new graphic novel A Bintel Brief blends history and imagination to create an experience that is rich, immersive, and satisfying. It begins when a young woman receives a notebook from her grandmother...
Born Pinkhes Kahanovitsch in 1884 Ukraine, Der Nister—the nom de plume meaning “The Hidden One”—was a widely underappreciated Yiddish writer of staggering talent and ingenuity. Der Nister’s early surrealistic stories were infused with Kabbalah and inspired by...
Joanna Hershon’s fervently readable new novel, A Dual Inheritance, follows friends of different ethnicities and classes as they swerve through the awkwardness of adolescence into the complexity of middle age. Like Rich Boy, The...
When recounting the story of the ten plagues at the seder table, you may have found that dipping a pinkie finger in wine is just not realistic enough. Wine is kind of reminiscent of...
We usually think of historical fiction as storytelling that attempts to simulate the events and atmosphere of the past—but what if historical fiction recreated not the past itself, but the historian’s process of trying...
Add to your bookshelf’s “Undead” section The Color of Light, Helen Maryles Shankman’s debut novel. This vampire tale is set in an art school that closely resembles the New York Academy of Art, which...
