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Book for Israel@60 discussion

This book is the one chosen for discussion across all of northern Utah as part of the Israel@60 celebration. We'll be discussing it at Brith Sholem on Tuesday, May 13th. Buy your copy now and come prepared for an enjoyable conversation (and snacks, of course!).

Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for Modern Jews, by Neil Gillman. This is an imposing overview of contemporary Jewish theology for modern Jews. Based on courses that Rabbi Gillman taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary, it offers a lucid account of current Jewish religious beliefs and doctrines across the entire spectrum, from supernaturalist Orthodoxy on the right to naturalist Reconstructionism on the left. Key topics such as God's existence, revelation, theodicy, religious authority, ritual, prayer, and eschatology are fascinatingly explored. Gillman's own views, which favor a middle-of-the-road existentialist approach, do not preclude objective analyses of differing viewpoints. Excellent detailed bibliographies further enhance the value of the book. Directed to questing lay readers, this brilliant exposition of Jewish theology should satisfy the needs of readers wanting to transcend the facile popular approach exemplified by Harold Kushner's books.

Siddur Sim Shalom, by Jules Harlow. This is the prayerbook used for Congregation Brith Sholem's regular Saturday morning services. The link is for the hardback version, but a paperback is supposed to be available, as well.

Jewish Living, by Mark Washofsky. From a review by "a former student": Dr. Washofsky outlines contemporary Reform Jewish practice within the context of Jewish tradition. His explanations are clear and informative, the topics covered nearly exhaustive. This work far exceeds any other attempts to define a Reform Jewish practice thus far. This is a "must have" for every Reform household.

The Art of Torah Cantillation, Volume 1, by Marshall Portnoy and Josee Wolff. Paperback self-guided text with CD.

The Art of Cantillation, Volume 2: A Step-by-Step Guide to Chanting Haftarot and Megillot, by Marshall Portnoy and Josee Wolff. Paperback self-guided text with CD.

Aleph Isn't Tough: An Introduction to Hebrew for Adults (Book 1), by Linda Motzkin and Hara Person.

Aleph Isn't Enough: Hebrew for Adults (Book 2), by Linda Motzkin and Hara Person.

The Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg. In this outstanding first novel, a family is shaken apart by a small but unexpected shift in the prospects of one of its members. When 9-year-old Eliza Naumann, an otherwise indifferent student, takes first prize in her school spelling bee, it is as if rays of light have begun to emanate from her head. Teachers regard her with a new fondness; the studious girls begin to save a place for her at lunch. Even Eliza can sense herself changing. She had "often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see." Eliza's father, Saul, a scholar and cantor, had long since given up expecting sparks of brilliance on her part. While her brother, Aaron, had taken pride in reciting his Bar Mitzvah prayers from memory, she had typically preferred television reruns to homework or reading. This belated evidence of a miraculous talent encourages Saul to reassess his daughter. And after she wins the statewide bee, he begins tutoring her for the national competition, devoting to Eliza the hours he once spent with Aaron. His daughter flowers under his care, eventually coming to look at life "in alphabetical terms." "Consonants are the camels of language," she realizes, "proudly carrying their lingual loads."
Vowels, however, are a different species, the fish that flash and glisten in the watery depths. Vowels are elastic and inconstant, fickle and unfaithful.... Before the bee, Eliza had been a consonant, slow and unsurprising. With her bee success, she has entered vowelhood. When Saul sees the state of transcendence that she effortlessly achieves in competition, he encourages his daughter to explore the mystical states that have eluded him--the influx of God-knowledge (shefa) described by the Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia. Although Saul has little idea what he has set in motion, "even the sound of Abulafia's name sets off music in her head. A-bu-la-fi-a. It's magic, the open sesame that unblocked the path to her father and then to language itself." Meanwhile, stunned by his father's defection, Aaron begins a troubling religious quest. Eliza's brainy, compulsive mother is also unmoored by her success. The spelling champion's newfound gift for concentration reminds Miriam of herself as a girl, and she feels a pang for not having seen her daughter more clearly before. But Eliza's clumsy response to Miriam's overtures convinces her mother that she has no real ties to her daughter. This final disappointment precipitates her departure into a stunning secret life. The reader is left wondering what would have happened if the Naumanns' spiritual thirsts had not been set in restless motion. A poignant and exceptionally well crafted tale, Bee Season has a slow beginning but a tour-de-force conclusion

The Ladies Auxiliary, by Tova Mirvis. The world of this confident, insightful debut novel is the tightly knit Orthodox Jewish community of Memphis, Tenn., a social structure that unravels when an unconventional New York convert settles there with her five-year-old daughter. Newly widowed Batsheva Jacobs is both shockingly modern and fervently spiritual. She lovingly raises her daughter, Ayala, in the Orthodox tradition, but she sings loudly and enthusiastically at shul (perhaps a sign of unseemly ego), visits the mikvah to cleanse herself (an act that raises eyebrows, since she has no husband), and she wears flowing clothes that show her figure--all of which is noted suspiciously by the local women whose common goal is to preserve tradition. In Memphis, where Shabbos dinner includes fried chicken and black-eyed peas, that task isn't easy. Taking a job as art teacher at the girls' school, blonde, green-eyed Batsheva is soon a beloved confidante of the community's female teenagers, but when she allows them to wear makeup and miniskirts on a ski trip, and becomes close to the Rabbi's beloved 22-year-old son, she's the subject of cruel gossip. After one of her students runs away with a non-Jewish, older boyfriend, Batsheva is blamed. The narrator, one of the housewives fiercely protective of the insular community, tells the story in third-person plural: "little changed in this city where we have always lived"--a statement rendered untrue, of course, as the community breaks into discord. Caught in the middle are Ayala and the respected and goodhearted Mimi Rubin, the rabbi's wife, who begins to believe rumors about her son's attachment to Batsheva, and panics. Generous with humor and compassion, Mirvis paints tenderly nuanced portraits of strong female characters while scrutinizing an entrenched religious subculture whose traditions are threatened by modern temptations. Guilt, passion, prejudice, loneliness and independence--common themes in Jewish literature--are explored with sensitivity in a gentle story that captures its milieu with tolerant understanding, and plucks the heartstrings.

Queenmaker, by India Edghill. Turning inside out the traditional view of David as a beloved king and gentle author of the Psalms, India Edghill's well-written debut novel Queenmaker paints a dark picture of the lauded biblical hero as seen through the eyes of his first wife, Michal. David's silver-tongued way with words captures Michal's heart, but her marriage to him is soon annulled by her half-mad father, King Saul. She's packed off to marry the widowed farmer Phaltiel, whom Michal soon learns to love. When David gains the throne of Israel and sends for Michal, she discovers that David has become a king who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Through courage and wit, Michal must carve out a new life as the queen and wife of a man she now despises. Edghill isn't afraid to change biblical narrative to suit her story, and paints David as a selfish, grasping leader whose feet of clay are all too evident in this tale. Those who like their biblical narrative served straight up and their heroes untarnished may be disturbed by this reassessment; those who like a good story and a new spin on biblical champions, however, will enjoy this unvarnished look at one of Judaism's and Christianity's most lauded personalities.

The Last Jew, by Noah Gordon. Set in Spain under the Inquisition, this latest big historical novel from Gordon (Shaman; The Rabbi) follows the adventures of young Yonah Helkias as he stays true to his Jewish faith, escapes from misadventures and finds love. In Toledo, in 1489, a precious reliquary of a Christian saint, crafted by Yonah's silversmith father, disappears; Yonah's older brother, who was delivering the relic, is found dead; and compassionate physician Bernardo Espina begins to investigate the theft and murder. Meanwhile, the Inquisition starts to target Jews, including conversos like Espina (Jews by birth who have entered the Catholic church). The bulk of the novel takes place three years later, when the deadline for all Jews to leave Spain has arrived. Yonah, aged 13, joins thousands of his co-religionists headed for Spanish borders and ports, but instead of departing, Yonah remains behind. After witnessing Espina's death in an auto-da-fe, Yonah leads a fugitive existence as a farmer, a shepherd, a cathedral laborer, a pot repairer, a seaman and, finally, as an apprentice armorer under the demanding master Manuel Fierro. Delivering armor, he returns to Toledo, where he bargains with his family's persecutors to escape a dangerous rendezvous with relic smugglers. Then Yonah's master is fatally double-crossed; after avenging him, Yonah heads to Saragossa, where Fierro's brother trains him to become--like the heroes of Gordon's The Physician and Shaman--a doctor. Yonah changes his name to Ramon Callico, marries a woman who knows his secret, but never gives up his desire to restore Espina's honor to his son, the stolen relic to the Church or his own soul to Judaism. Gordon has earned an international audience for his impressively documented historical narratives, his compassion for the trials of emigres and his intricate descriptions of Renaissance crafts. Through a crowded landscape of characters and incidents, he illuminates the choices history forces on individuals--and, not incidentally, creates a grand, informative adventure and a completely engaging, unsentimental portrait of a turbulent time.

The Color of Water, by James McBride. The Color of Water tells the remarkable story of Ruth McBride Jordan, the two good men she married, and the 12 good children she raised. Jordan, born Rachel Shilsky, a Polish Jew, immigrated to America soon after birth; as an adult she moved to New York City, leaving her family and faith behind in Virginia. Jordan met and married a black man, making her isolation even more profound. The book is a success story, a testament to one woman's true heart, solid values, and indomitable will. Ruth Jordan battled not only racism but also poverty to raise her children and, despite being sorely tested, never wavered. In telling her story--along with her son's--The Color of Water addresses racial identity with compassion, insight, and realism. It is, in a word, inspiring, and you will finish it with unalloyed admiration for a flawed but remarkable individual. And, perhaps, a little more faith in us all.

Snow in August, by Pete Hamill. In 1940s Brooklyn, friendship between an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy and an elderly Jewish rabbi might seem as unlikely as, well, snow in August. But the relationship between young Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch is only one of the many miracles large and small contained in Pete Hamill's novel. Michael finds himself in trouble when he witnesses the 17-year-old leader of the dreaded Falcons gang beating an elderly shopkeeper. For Michael, 1940s Brooklyn is a world still shaped by life in the Old Country, a world where informing on a fellow Irishman is the worst crime imaginable--worse even than the violent crimes committed by some of those fellows. So Michael keeps silent, finding solace in the company of Rabbi Hirsch, a Czech refuge whom he meets by chance. From this serendipitous beginning blossoms a unique friendship--one that proves perilous to both when the Falcons catch up with them. Interlaced with Hamill's realistic descriptions of violence and fear are scenes of remarkable poignancy: the rabbi's first baseball game, where he sees Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers; Michael's introduction into the mystical world of the Cabbala and the book's miraculous ending. Hamill is not a lyrical writer, but he is a heartfelt one, and this story of courage in the face of great odds is one of his best.
 

For KIDS--Putting God on Your Guest List, by Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin. At last, a guide especially for kids, to help them spiritually prepare for their bar/bat mitzvah. Explains the core spiritual values of Judaism to young people in a language they can understand. Questions at the end of each chcapter engage kids and let them offer their own thoughts. A special section helps parents and kids find places to perform acts of tzedakah to honor the event.
 

To Life! A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking, by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. Awakens readers to the exuberance and enjoyment, the rewards and relevance of Judaism today. To Life! explores how the Sabbath and holidays are not days of obligation, but of opportunity; how Judaism gives us what we need--the words to say and the acts to do--in times of both joy and tragedy; how love of Israel makes us better Americans; how a life of blessing, not a rejection by anti-Semites, is the real driving force of Jewish identity; how not only Christianity needs Judaism, but Judaism needs Christianity as well; and finally, how to feel like an extension of God by doing what God does, taking the ordinary and making it holy.
 

The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant. Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah--the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate, immediate connection. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.

Miriam's Kitchen, by Elizabeth Ehrlich. "Food memoirs often delve into the meaning of life. This hardly surprises--memories are as essential to daily life as the food that sustains us. Miriam's Kitchen blends recipes and food reminiscences with family narratives and observations about the author's personal evolution as a Jew. Ehrlich weaves the stories from four generations of family life, punctuated with powerful and often tragic memories. While her mother-in-law, Miriam, is teaching her to make chicken livers with noodles, Ehrlich unexpectedly learns how Miriam, her mother, and husband survived a Nazi labor camp in Poland during the Holocaust. Using vivid and bare yet discreet words, she graphically tells what they suffered and the nightmares that still haunt them.

"Ehrlich's own story covers her transformation from a child whose family lit Sabbath candles but went boating on Yom Kippur, to an adult who chooses an Orthodox life marked by ambivalence about the rigors of being kosher and pride in what she is passing on to her children. Recipes for Honey Cake, Noodle Pudding, and many others are buried treasures hidden among Ehrlich's intense words. Sadly omitted is a recipe for potato kugel. Her grandmother uses this tempting pudding to good-naturedly test, taunt, and ultimately as the means for accepting her daughter Selina's non-Jewish fiancé into the family. Happily for us, 24 other tempting kosher recipes make up for this one missed dish. Miriam's Kitchen is a gripping and gratifying memoir of food, life, tragedy, and family survival."

Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains, Edited by J. Sanford Rikoon, translated from the Yiddish by Jacob Calof and Molly Shaw. Rachel Bella Calof's memoir is a treasure for the insights it gives into the experience of being a woman, a Jew, and a homesteader on the North Dakota frontier at the turn of the last century. Born in the Ukraine, Rachel was orphaned at age four, when her mother died. She and her siblings were raised by a stepmother who starved and beat them. Later, she worked as a servant for wealthy relatives. At the age of eighteen, Rachel made a daring and desperate choice to escape a life of poverty and helplessness--she agreed to marry a stranger, Abraham Calof, a Russian Jew living in America. Unlike most Russian Jewish immigrants who settled in large cities, Abraham Calof decided to try his luck out west with his mail-order bride. When Rachel met Abraham at Ellis Island, she was prepared to work side by side with him for a better life. "I had no idea where North Dakota was or what the country was like, but I was prepared for the challenge," she writes. "Of course I had no intimation of the incredible hardships which awaited us there." Her memoir, written in Yiddish, describes their grinding poverty, small triumphs, and survival on their homestead farm for over twenty years. With unflinching honesty, Rachel describes her adjustment to life on the prairie, which was in many ways more primitive than the life she left behind in the Ukraine. Every winter, her in-laws would move into her twelve-by-fourteen shack in order to save fuel. Five adults lived in these cramped quarters with chickens in cages under their beds. "Of all the privations I knew as a homesteader, the lack of privacy was the hardest to bear," she reflects. Rachel bore nine children, with little help or support from other women. Despite their back-breaking work, a season's crops were often destroyed within hours by a sudden hailstorm or cyclone. Yet, the portrait that emerges in this straightforward, unromanticized telling is that of an extraordinarily resourceful and dedicated wife and mother, and a woman with a firm sense of self, who tried to conduct herself "under the most severe conditions as a Jewish woman should." Over the years, the Calof's home became a congregating point for other Jewish farming families in the Devils Lake region.

A Journey to the End of the Millennium: A Novel of the Middle Ages, by A.B. Yehoshua. It is the year 999 and Ben Attar, a Jewish merchant from Tangiers, along with his two wives and Muslim business partner, undertakes his annual voyage to Europe. Through this trip, Attar hopes to advance his trading interests in Paris and other cities abroad as well as preserve his business partnerships, now made uncertain due to his bigamous marriage. The journey is the beginning of a human drama filled with the moral conflicts of fidelity and desire--as well as issues of faith and religious code and how it emanates from the flesh as much as from the heart and mind... In a book prased as a "masterpiece" written by one of "the world's most towering novelists," Yehoshua explores the deepest questions of humanity, issues that still resonate a thousand years later.

Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, by Ruth Kluger. Born in Vienna, Kluger somehow survived a girlhood spent in Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Gross-Rosen. Some of the lessons she imparts are surprising, as when she argues, against other historians, that the female camp guards were far more humane than their male counterparts, and when she admits that she has difficulty today queuing in line, a constant of camp life, "out of revulsion for the bovine activity of simply standing." Her memories of her youth are punctuated by sharp reflections on the meaning of the Shoah and how it should best be memorialized in a time when ever fewer survivors are left to act as witnesses.

Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America, by Letty Cottin Pogrebin. A deeply personal account of one woman's efforts to merge the feminist ideology of equality and autonomy with the particularity of Judaism and Jewish ethics.

Who Wrote the Bible?, by Richard Elliott Friedman. "It is a strange fact that we have never known with certainty who produced the book that has played such a central role in our civilization," writes Friedman, a foremost Bible scholar. From this point he begins an investigation and analysis that reads as compellingly as a good detective story. Focusing on the Five Books of Moses, he draws upon biblical and archaeological evidence to make a convincing argument for the identities of their authors. In the process he paints a vivid picture of the world of the bible--its politics, history, and personalities. The result is a marvel of scholarship that sheds a new and enriching light on our understanding of the Bible as literature, history, and sacred text.