Book Group

Beth Jacob's Contemporary Jewish Fiction, Memoir and History Reading Group meets bi-monthly at the synagogue on Thursdays from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.  

A light supper (salad, bread and cheese) plus pot luck dishes are served. Contact Michele Clark or Marcy Shaffer Hale for additional information. 

Beth Jacob Book Group Selections for 2019-2020

October 10, 2019  
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love 
by Dani Shapiro
A memoir about identity, paternity, and family secrets—a real-time exploration of the staggering discovery she recently made about her father, and her struggle to piece together the hidden story of her own life.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40364332-inheritance

December 12, 2019
I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity 
by Izzeldin Abuelaish
Anuelaish is a Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He has been crossing the divide between Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life - as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East, and as a father whose daughters were killed by Israeli soldiers on Jan 16, 2009. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, Abuelaish called for the people in the region to start talking to each other.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8550813-i-shall-not-hate?ac=1&from_search=true

February 13, 2020
Sadness Is a White Bird 
by Moriel Rothman-Zecher
In this lyrical and searing debut novel written by a rising literary star and MacDowell Fellow, a young man is preparing to serve in the Israeli army while also trying to reconcile his close relationship to two Palestinian siblings with his deeply ingrained loyalties to family and country.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35297191-sadness-is-a-white-bird?ac=1&from_search=true

April 2, 2020
All the Rivers 
by Dorit Rabinyan
A controversial, award-winning story about the passionate but untenable affair between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, from one of Israel’s most acclaimed novelists. Banned from classrooms by Israel’s Ministry of Education, Dorit Rabinyan’s remarkable novel contains multitudes. A bold portrayal of the strains—and delights—of a forbidden relationship, All the Rivers (published in Israel as Borderlife) is a love story and a war story, a New York story and a Middle East story, an unflinching foray into the forces that bind us and divide us.
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/all-the-rivers-a-novel

June 11, 2020
Memories of Eden: A Journey Through Jewish Baghdad 
by Violette Shamash
As a privileged young woman growing up with her extended family in Baghdad, Violette Shamash relives the excitement of a vibrant society coming to terms with daily life, first under Ottoman, then British, and finally pro-Nazi rule, which ended in disaster for the Jews of Iraq.
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/memories-of-eden-a-journey-through-jewish-baghdad

August 13, 2020
The Fruit of Her Hands: The Story of Shira of Ashkenaz 
by Michelle Cameron
Based on the life of the author’s thirteenth-century ancestor, Meir ben Baruch of Rothenberg, a renowned Jewish scholar of medieval Europe, this is the richly dramatic fictional story of Rabbi Meir’s wife, Shira, a devout but rebellious woman who preserves her religious traditions as she and her family witness the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6431998-the-fruit-of-her-hands?ac=1&from_search=true