Jewish Book Club
The Jewish Book Club is a great way for book lovers to enjoy getting to know each other through lively discussion about great books with Jewish and literary value. Selections are mostly fiction, occasional biography/memoir or historical non-fiction. The book clubs meets on Zoom, and occasionally in person, at 12:00pm on the second Tuesday of each month. Below are the selections for the rest of the year.
If you would like to take part, please email IHC librarian emerita Evelyn Pockrass.
Tuesday, September 12
Once We Were Home by Jennifer Rosner
A work of fiction based on true stories of World War Two children whose identity was hidden in order for them to survive, Rosner’s novel focuses on four children from three families, all of whom eventually come to Israel. In her lyrical and moving writing style, Rosner examines how these refugees’ lives and identities continued to be affected by wartime experiences.
Tuesday, October 10
The Hyena Murders by Ellen Frankel
Book Two of Frankel’s Jerusalem Mysteries Series provides details on the complicated societal role Ethiopian Jews have played in Israel. A prominent Ethiopian politician’s family is targeted and Israeli intelligence officer Maya Rimon is determined to find the killer as well as the motivation for the violence.
Tuesday, November 14:
My Mother’s Secret by Alina Adams
Lena’s dying father’s last words remain a puzzle she is eager to solve. She asks her mother who a man called Aaron Kramer is and a story unfolds about the misguided Soviet plan to build a homeland for Jews in Birobidzhan near the Trans-Siberian Railway bordering China. Adams’ novel is filled with insights and irony about Soviet actions to relocate Jews to an “autonomous region.” The author and her family emigrated from Odessa to the United States in 1976.
Tuesday, December 12
The Island of Extraordinary Captives by Simon Parkin
The subtitle of this non-fiction work says it all: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp. Parkin concentrates on the plight of Peter Fleischmann, a German-born Kindertransport young budding artist. Parkin, a journalist, forcefully documents that real life can have more twists and turns than fiction.