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Building a Jewish Library

Fiction and Literature

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Select this Book	Aleichem, Sholem. Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories. Schocken Books. 1996. ISBN: 0805210695. With his supple, intelligent translation, Halkin makes accessible the poignant short stories by the legendary Yiddish humorist Sholem Rabinovich (1859-1916), who wrote under the nom de plume "Sholem Aleichem," a Yiddish salutation. As Halkin elucidates in his introduction, Tevye's self-mocking but deeply affecting monologues (which inspired the play and film "Fiddler on the Roof" satisfy on several levels: as a psychological analysis of a father's love for his daughters, despite the disappointments they bring him; as a paradigm of the tribulations and resilience of Russian Jewry and the disintegration of shtetl life at the twilight of the Czarist Empire; and as a Job-like theological debate with God. The twenty Railroad Stories, the monologues of a traveling salesman and his fellow Jewish travelers, depict Jewish thieves and arsonists, feuding spouses, draft evaders, grieving parents and assimilationists. Like the eight Tevye tales, these unprettified stories of simple people and their harsh realities summon a bygone era, but their appeal and application are timeless. Bringing both groups of tales together for the first time in English, this first volume in Schocken's Library of Yiddish Classics series is an auspicious event.
Select this Book	Cahan, Abraham. The Rise of David Levinsky. Harper & Row. 1993. ISBN: 0140186875. The first book to explore the American Jewish immigrant experience has stood the test of time and has become a prototype for other similar volumes. The author, editor of the;Forward;, focuses on problems common to that time and society;parent-child separation, religious adherence and the freedom of America, materialism vs. shtetl frugality, and more.
Select this Book	Gordon, Noah. The Jerusalem Diamond. Time Warner Paperbacks. 1979. ISBN: 0445046848. A story set in America, Europe, Africa and Israel. A New York diamond dealer investigates the history of a yellow diamond that was buried in a temple and has caused conflict over the centuries. The novel also deals with his love for two women. By the author of "Shaman" and "The Physician."
Select this Book	Hareven, Shulamith. The Miracle Hater. North Point Press. 1988. ISBN: 0865473293. This small jewel by a prominent Israeli writer is an inspired revision of the biblical Exodus, the Hebrews' worship of the Golden Calf and their brutal, seemingly endless, 40-year desert sojourn. The canny novella vivifies the rebel Hebrew slaves as impoverished refugees living at the mercy of the Egyptian populace, the immensity of their freedom when they flee Egypt and the generation born in the desert who, "like doorless and windowless houses," retain no memory of slavery. In Hareven's tale, the "miracle man" Moses is a remote leader, "who could not stand being touched," and the focus is on Eshkhar, an outcast even among the desert wanderers. Frustrated by the misery of his thirsty, sickly people, he roams beyond the camp and discovers "that the desert was inhabited, that it had limits, that it could be crossed from end to end in a matter of weeks. The deception of miracles was keeping them purblind and lost." Halkin's careful translation illuminates the ways in which the author's spare, lyric prose, embroidered with archaisms, complements and amplifies the language of the bible.
Select this Book	Heller, Joseph. God Knows. Alfred A. Knopf. 1984. ISBN: 0394529197. The Old Testament through Joseph Heller's eyes. This is a very funny look at the Old Testament, as told by King David. Only Heller could turn the wise King Solomon into Shlomo, the idiot. As David tells it, the famous story where Solomon suggested cutting the baby in half to find out who its real mother was had been twisted around. According to David, Shlomo was an idiot and actually wanted to cut the baby in half! Some people may be offended by this book, but if God has a sense of humor I'm sure He got a kick out of it. This was one of Heller's best books. If you've ever read anything by him and laughed, don't hesitate to pick this one up.
Select this Book	Potok, Chaim. The Book of Lights. Fawcett. 1997. ISBN: 0449245691. Potok explores fundamental issues of faith and good and evil in a profound, touching story.
Select this Book	Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. Fawcett Books. 1996. ISBN: 0449213447. Potok's most widely read book is about two Jewish boys, one Orthodox, one Hassidic, growing up in Brooklyn, NY during the period of the Israel War for Independence. It depicts the power of friendship in a coming-of-age story.
Select this Book	Ragen, Naomi. The Covenant. St. Martin's Press. 2004. ISBN: 0312291191. Ragen, an American writer who's lived in Israel for more than 30 years, blends tragedies of the past with headline news of today in her gripping, emotionally charged sixth novel. It's 2002, and the Margulies family oncologist Jonathan;his pregnant, American-born wife, Elise;and their daughter, Ilana are contentedly living in a Jerusalem settlement, until one day, on their way home, Jonathan and Ilana are kidnapped by Hamas. Elise's frantic call to her Bubbee Leah in Brooklyn reunites four women now grandmas and great-grandmas who, as girls, made the titular covenant: if they survived Auschwitz, they would become "one person, risking everything, giving everything, to help each other live in happiness all the days of our lives." Leah gathers up fellow New Yorker Esther, now a cosmetics millionaire;Paris nightclub owner Ariana;and Polish political activist Maria to help find the kidnap victims. It's a race against time, as the women wield their considerable influence and the Israeli army desperately tries to intercede with the kidnappers before the captives are killed. Ragen weaves in deeper, more serious undertones than the thriller plot suggests, touching on the stubborn pride and the serious purpose that keeps Israelis fighting (or, in some cases, not fighting) for their fragile country, "the land that God promised to the Jewish people in his Covenant to Abraham."
Select this Book	Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1991. ISBN: 0374522928. This story is of a Yiddish-speaking eastern-European immigrant family who came to "the Golden Land" and settled on New York's Lower East Side in 1907. It is a brilliantly told tale of the dark side of the immigrant saga complete with a dysfunctional family.
Select this Book	Schram, Peninnah. Stories One Generation Tells Another. Jason Aronson. 1996. ISBN: 1568219806. Jewish folk tales are retold by a leading contemporary Jewish storyteller. They range from fables and parables to midrashic interpretations on biblical portions to hasidic stories and more, all conveying the essence of Jewish culture and customs.
Select this Book	Steinberg, Milton. As a Driven Leaf. Behrrnan House Publishing. 1996. ISBN: 0874411033. This historical novel of one man's struggle for faith in ancient Israel is an illumination of the Jewish mind of its time: one that hungered for that absolute proof by which it claimed the universe and without which it was desolute. It is a story for every age.
Select this Book	Uris, Leon. Exodus. Bantam. 1983. ISBN: 0553258478. Uris wrote this historical novel establishing a whole genre of literature on Israel and Zionism. This work is about the birth and birth pains of the modern state of Israel.
Select this Book	Wouk, Herman. Marjorie Morningstar. Back Bay Books. 1992. ISBN: 0316955132. Novel by Herman Wouk, published in 1955, about a woman who rebels against the confining middle-class values of her industrious American-Jewish family. Her dream of being an actress ends in failure. She ultimately forfeits her illusions and marries a conventional man with whom she finds sufficient contentment as a suburban wife and mother, thus finally coming to accept her parents' values.

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