Guide to Jewish Literature - May/June 2024

A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER.  A timely, powerful reflection on our relationship to death and an invitation to accept loss and vulnerability as essential and enriching parts of life, from France’s most prominent female rabbi.  Horvilleur recounts stories collected during the years she has spent caring for the dying and their loved ones.  From Elsa Cayat, the Charlie Hebdo columnist killed in the terrorist attack, to Simone Veil and Marceline Loridan, “the girls of Birkenau”; from Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to Myriam, a New Yorker obsessed with planning her own funeral. Horvilleur addresses death and dying with intelligence, humor, and compassion.

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.  A National bestseller.  Selected a best book of the year in 2023 by NPR, The New Yorker, and TIME Magazine.  An enthralling investigation into family secrets, and a poignant tale of a Jewish family devastated by the Holocaust and partly restored through the power of storytelling.  “Powerful” —The New York Times. “Stunning” —The New Yorker.  “Moving… Let’s hope that a book like this, which encompasses both the monstrosities of the past and the dangers of the present, will guard us from complacency.”—The Wall Street Journal.

The media has discovered Zevi’s secret psychic abilities—and it’s ruining his life! He wants to be known as an actor, not a psychic. When film star Robert Lemon comes to town to shoot a movie, Zevi hopes this is his big chance. Until he begins to sense that the star’s life may be in danger and it’s up to Zevi to save him.

All first-generation Americans and their immigrant parents should read this book. It is a roadmap and chronicle of how to achieve the American dream from the experiences, successes and failures growing up in a middle-class Jewish Brooklyn ghetto dealing with the pressures to fit into the American culture. Teenagers and young adults will appreciate how education and mentorship affects planning a career. Through the author’s journey and zany adventures, readers will identify with the stresses and insecurities of growing into adulthood, assuming responsibility for oneself, and the delicate balance between personal, family, and professional issues while achieving the American dream.

Dr. Larry S. Milner, an authority on Infanticide, asks: will abortion-right reversals (Roe v. Wade) lead to infanticide?  In his book, Hardness of Heart – Hardness of Life: The Stain of Human Infanticide, he investigates why infanticide has been present in every form of human society throughout history, to understand how the loss of these rights will affect Americans as well.

Kill Brothers is a pulse-pounding, cold case thriller that delivers page-turning twists and turns, weaving together historical fiction (World War II) and modern-day DNA analysis. Will NYPD’s Detective Mills murder investigation link him back to Greta Weber’s shocking secret of nearly a century before? From the 1920s Germany to 2018 in Brooklyn, Kill Brothers will keep readers racing through the pages until its mind-bending conclusion.  

From the opening vignette in which a photograph is a silent witness to history to the powerful coda “Miracles,” a novella set against the vibrant panorama of the Yiddish theater in America, the fifteen memorable narratives in The Girls of Jerusalem and Other Stories span continents and eras as they chronicle love and loss, piety and heresy, mysticism and rationality to reinterpret ancient tropes of exile, dislocation, and profound change, revealing a new understanding of Jewish history and memory. “Luminous tales of exile and loss that bequeath new life” Kirkus Reviews (starred review). A best book of the year selection.

A musical story celebrating the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. This book features fresh lyrics and a toe-tapping melody. The colorful illustrations mirror the joy of this special bond. Use the QR code printed inside the book to download the song. Prepare to make memories to last a lifetime—listening, reading and singing together!

Forced to return to her parents’ roots in the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, Casey Cohen faces two opposing worlds as she explores the unfamiliar culture and finds love. “…a read-alike for Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife and Melissa Bank’s A Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing and sets the weight of familial, romantic and cultural expectations against the terrifying freedom of the unknown.”—Booklist.