A Guide to Jewish Studies: Fiction

"Collection of forty-seven stories selected by the Nobel Prize winning author from among the writings he authored from 1953-1981." - from the publisher

"A Jewish refugee who escaped Hitler's Holocaust and is living in New York with his second wife faces a dilemma when he discovers that his first wife is still alive." - from the publisher

"In Betrothed, Jacob Rechnitz, a marine biologist arrives in pre-World War I Jaffa on the Mediterranean coast of the Land of Israel. His scholarly pursuits and gentle dalliance with six girls is interrupted by the arrival of his benefactor Ehrlich and his daughter Shoshanah, who is destined to rouse Jacob from his waking slumber through the power of their childhood betrothal oath. The story focuses on what transpires to the couple when they fail to marry as they swore to do and their reunion after the passing of many years.The idyllic peace of Betrothed is counterpointed in Edo and Enam by restlessness leading to tragedy. Set in Jerusalem in the final years of the British Mandate, the scholars Ginat and Gamzu are wanderers; men like the narrator himself, gambling on travel for some magical answer to their problems. Ironically, Gamzu's wife Gemulah, a sleepwalker, puts an end to their quest in a manner as tragic as it is unexpected." - from the publisher

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

"Augie March is a Jewish-American boy growing up fatherless and poor in Depression-era Chicago. He seeks a "special destiny," although his circumstances seem to position him for a uniquely disappointing life: his family consists of a simple-minded mother, a brother and "grandmother" who prove to be Machiavellian in their intentions, and an "idiot" youngest brother, Georgie."

""Sammler, a New Yorker in his seventies, a refugee from Nazism, a thinker of complex thoughts, a touchstone around whom a heterogeneous group revolves, is not simply the protagonist but the prime mover of a many-sided novel held together by the centripetal force of his presence. The counterpoint of personalities, subplots, and incidents constitutes a tragi-comic commentary on twentieth-century urban life but it is Sammler's considered reflections on that life that dominate a novel which, most movingly, asks basic questions about how we live and what we live for at this chaotic point in history. Portions of the novel first appeared in the Atlantic." - from the publisher

"Crowds and Power is a revolutionary work in which Elias Canetti finds a new way of looking at human history and psychology. Breathtaking in its range and erudition, it explores Shiite festivals and the English Civil war, the finger exercises of monkeys and the effects of inflation in Weimar Germany. In this study of the interplay of crowds, Canetti offers one of the most profound and startling portraits of the human condition."

"Auto-da-Fé, Elias Canetti's only work of fiction, is a staggering achievement that puts him squarely in the ranks of major European writers such as Robert Musil and Hermann Broch. It is the story of Peter Kien, a scholarly recluse who lives among and for his great library. The destruction of Kien through the instrument of the illiterate, brutish housekeeper he marries constitutes the plot of the book. The best writers of our time have been concerned with the horror of the modern world--one thinks of Kafka, to whom Canetti has often been compared. But Auto-da-Fé stands as a completely original, unforgettable treatment of the modern predicament."

"In the final days of World War II, a band of Jewish partisans makes its way from Russia to Italy, moving toward the ultimate goal of Palestine. Based on a true story, the novel chronicles their adventures as they wage a personal war of revenge against the Nazis: blowing up trains, rescuing the last victims of concentration camps, scoring victories in the face of unspeakable devastation. Primo Levi captures the landscape and the people of Eastern Europe in vivid detail, depicting as well the terrible bleakness of war-ridden Europe. But finally, what he gives us is a tribute to the strength and ingenuity of the human spirit." - from the publisher

"The novel is about a young Hungarian boy, György "Gyuri" Köves, living in Budapest. The book opens as György's father is being sent to a labor camp. Soon afterwards, György receives working papers and travels to work outside of the Jewish quarter. One day all of the Jews are pulled off of the buses leaving the Jewish quarter, and are sent to Auschwitz on a train without water. Arriving there, György lies about his age, unknowingly saving his own life, and tells us of camp life and the conditions he faces. Eventually he is sent to Buchenwald, and continues on describing his life in a concentration camp, before being finally sent to another camp in Zeitz. György falls ill and nears death, but remains alive and is eventually sent to a hospital facility in a concentration camp until the war ends. Returning to Budapest, he is confronted with those who were not sent to camps and had just recently begun to hear of the terrible injustice and suffering." - from the publisher

A teenage Jewish boy from Budapest finds himself in turmoil as Hitler's Final Solution becomes policy throughout Europe. Taken from his family and sent to a concentration camp, his existence becomes a surreal adventure in adversity in order to survive.

"The Rise of David Levinsky, written by the legendary founder and editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, is an early Jewish-American classic. According to the scholar Sam B. Girgus, "The novel is more than an important literary work and cultural document. It forms part of the traditional ritual of renewal of the American Way." First published in 1917, Abraham Cahan's realistic novel tells the story of a young talmudic scholar who emigrates from a small town in Russia to the melting pot of turn-of-the-century New York City. As the Jewish "greenhorn" rises from the depths of poverty to become a millionaire garment merchant, he discovers the unbearably high price of assimilation." - from the publisher

"Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber’s greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Hailed as a novel 'to read and remember' (New York Times), So Big is the unforgettable story of the indomitable Selina Peake DeJong and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity in the face of a challenging marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood. First published in 1924, So Big is a brilliant literary masterwork from one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and admired writers, and still resonates today with its unflinching views of poverty, sexism, and the drive for success."

" Like no other masterpiece of historical fiction, Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II is the great novel of America's Greatest Generation.
Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of global events, as well as all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of World War II, as it immerses us in the lives of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom. The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance stand as the crowning achievement of one of America's most celebrated storytellers." - from the publisher

"From the author of Spartacus and Freedom Road, comes a novel of the Bible's greatest freedom fighter, the rebellious prince of Egypt, Moses! This definitive new edition of Howard Fast's riveting novel portrays the early years of the man who would lead his people out of slavery to freedom. In Moses, Howard Fast uses his widely acclaimed storytelling skills to paint a portrait of the most fascinating figure of the Bible. The child Moses grows to adulthood in the royal household of Ramses II, surrounded by the political factions, sending, but not fully understanding, the paradox of his singular position." - from the publisher

"At long last, here are all of Grace Paley's classic stories collected in one volume. From her first book, The Little Disturbances of Man, published in 1959, to Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974) and Later the Same Day (1985), Grace Paley's quirky, boisterous characters and rich use of language have won her readers' hearts and secured her place as one of America's most accomplished writers. Grace Paley's stories are united by her signature interweaving of personal and political truths, by her extraordinary capacity for empathy, and by her pointed, funny depiction a the small and large events that make up city life. As her work progresses, we encounter many of the same characters and revisit the same sites, bearing witness to a community as it develops and matures, becoming part ourselves of a dense and vital world that is singular yet achingly familiar." - from the publisher

"From one of America's great literary figures, a new collection of essays on eminent writers and their work, and on the war between life and art. The perilous intersection of writers' lives with public and private dooms is the fertile subject of many of these remarkable essays. Written with wit and passion, they touch on the inmost identity of literature and the literary artist - with biographical, historical, and psychological overtones. T.S. Eliot sympathizes with fascists, Isaac Babel rides with Red Cossacks - yet both are luminous shapers of modernism. Modernism itself is resisted by the American cultural establishment.Henry James, magisterial psychologist, remains at the mercy of his own mysterious psyche. Anthony Trollope's masterliness is obscured, first by charges of writing too much and too fast, and then by cultism. Salman Rushdie's gifts are assailed amid bitter contemporary controversy. And the secret pulse of ambition (and loss) is exposed in the brokenhearted waywardness of the once-celebrated and now nearly forgotten writer Alfred Chester." - from the publisher

"A coming-of-age classic about two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, this “profound and universal” (The Wall Street Journal) story of faith, family, tradition, and assimilation remains deeply pertinent today. “Works of this caliber should be occasion for singing in the streets and shouting from the rooftops.” —Chicago Tribune It’s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they’ve never met, not until the day an accident at a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys—one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America—are drawn into one another’s worlds despite a father’s strong opposition. Set against the backdrop of World War II and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself—even if it might mean disappointing those you love." - from the publisher

"It has been years since Swenson, a professor of creative writing at a small New England college, has published a novel of his own. It's been even longer since a student of his has shown a glimmer of talent. And academia, with its increasingly stifling politically correct environment, isn't what it used to be. Enter Angela Argo, a pierced, tattooed student with a rare gift for writing. Fearless and ambitious, Angela seems like the answer to Swenson's prayers. Better yet, she wants his help. What could be more perfect? However, as experience shows, the road to hell is paved with good intentions." - from the publisher

"For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal Distric of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life - and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder - right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage - and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written." - from the publisher

"With this brilliant novel, the bestselling author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys gives us an exhilarating triumph of language and invention, a stunning novel in which the tragicomic adventures of a couple of boy geniuses reveal much about what happened to America in the middle of the twentieth century. Like Phillip Roth's American Pastoral or Don DeLillo's Underworld, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a superb novel with epic sweep, spanning continents and eras, a masterwork by one of America's finest writers. It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat to date: smuggling himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague. He is looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a collaborator to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Out of their fantasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sammy weave the legend of that unforgettable champion the Escapist. And inspired by the beautiful and elusive Rosa Saks, a woman who will be linked to both men by powerful ties of desire, love, and shame, they create the otherworldly mistress of the night, Luna Moth. As the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Golden Age of comic books has begun. The brilliant writing that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to John Cheever and Vladimir Nabokov is everywhere apparent in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." - from the publisher

"Connected solely by a desk of enormous dimension and many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away, three people--a lonely American novelist clinging to the memory of a poet who has mysteriously vanished in Chile, an old man in Israel facing the imminent death of his wife of 51 years, and an esteemed antiques dealer tracking down the things stolen from his father by the Nazis--struggle to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss." - from the publisher

"Jules Epstein, a man whose drive, avidity, and outsized personality have, for sixty-eight years, been a force to be reckoned with, is undergoing a metamorphosis. In the wake of his parents' deaths, his divorce from his wife of more than thirty years, and his retirement from the New York law firm where he was a partner, he has felt an irresistible need to give away his possessions, alarming his children and perplexing the executor of his estate. With the last of his wealth he travels to Israel, with a nebulous plan to do something to honor his parents. In Tel Aviv, he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi planning a reunion for the descendants of King David who insists that Epstein is part of that storied dynastic line. He also meets the rabbi's beautiful daughter, who convinces Epstein to become involved in her own project--a film about the life of David that is being shot in the desert--with life-changing consequences. But Epstein isn't the only seeker embarking on a metaphysical journey that dissolves his sense of self, place, and history. Leaving her family in Brooklyn, a well-known young, well-known novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton, where she has stayed every year since her birth. Troubled by writer's block and a failing marriage, she hopes that the hotel can unlock a dimension of reality--and her own perception of life--that has been closed off to her. But when she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can't turn down, she is drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined. Bursting with life and humor, Forest Dark is a profound, mesmerizing novel of transformation and self-realization--of looking beyond all that is visible toward the infinite." - from the publisher

"A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Reflecting on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the blockbuster travelling exhibition called "Auschwitz," the Jewish history of the Chinese city of Harbin, and the little known "righteous-gentile" Varian Fry, Dara Horn challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, as emblematic of the worst of evils the world has to offer, and so little respect for Jewish lives, as they continue to unfold in the present. Horn draws upon her own family life -- trying to explain Shakespeare's Shylock to a curious 10-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children's school in New Jersey, the profound and essential perspective offered by traditional religious practice, prayer, and study -- to assert the vitality, complexity and depth of this life against an anti-Semitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise." - from the publisher

"Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn't to murder the spy, but to marry her." - from the publisher

"The story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy." - from the publisher

"Hamid, a college student, has entered Israeli territory illegally for work. Rushing past soldiers, he bumps into Vera, a German journalist headed to Jerusalem to cover the story of Salem, a Palestinian boy beaten into a coma by a group of revenge-seeking Israeli teenagers. On her way to the hospital, Vera runs in front of a car that barely avoids hitting her. The driver is Ido, a new father traveling with his American wife and their baby. Ido is distracted by thoughts of a young Jewish girl murdered by a terrorist who infiltrated her settlement. Ori, a nineteen-year-old soldier from a nearby settlement, is guarding the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem through which Samar - Hamid's professor - must pass. These multiple strands open this magnificent and haunting novel of present-day Israel and Palestine, following each of these diverse characters as they try to protect what they love. Their interwoven stories reveal complicated, painful truths about life in this conflicted land steeped in hope, love, hatred, terror, and blood on both sides." - from the publisher

"A collection of Jewish stories by known and unknown writers, beginning early in the 19th Century. From Sunbeams, on the world of Eastern European Jewry, to The Visit, a nostalgic look at old Tel Aviv." - from the publisher

"It's 1948 and the Arab villagers of Khirbet Khizeh are about to be violently expelled from their homes. A young Israeli soldier who is on duty that day finds himself battling on two fronts: with the villagers and, ultimately, with his own conscience. Published just months after the founding of the state of Israel and the end of the 1948 war, the novella Khirbet Khizeh was an immediate sensation when it first appeared. Since then, the book has continued to challenge and disturb, even finding its way onto the school curriculum in Israel. The various debates it has prompted would themselves make Khirbet Khizeh worth reading, but the novella is much more than a vital historical document: it is also a great work of art. Yizhar's haunting, lyrical style and charged view of the landscape are in many ways as startling as his wrenchingly honest view of modern Israel's primal scene. Considered a modern Hebrew masterpiece, Khirbet Khizeh is an extraordinary and heartbreaking book that is destined to be a classic of world literature." - from the publisher

"Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of stand-up in a dive in a small Israeli city. In the audience are some whom Dov knew as a boy, an awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually Dov's patter becomes a kind of memoir: we meet his mother, a Holocaust survivor in need of constant monitoring, and his punishing father, a striver who had little understanding of his creative son; Dov recalls his week at a military camp for youth; and shares a story of loss and survival."

"In this powerful novel by one of Israel's most prominent writers, Momik, the only child of Holocaust survivors, grows up in the shadow of his parents' history. Determined to exorcise the Nazi "beast" from their shattered lives and prepare for a second holocaust he knows is coming, Momik increasingly shields himself from all feeling and attachment. But through the stories his great-uncle tells him―the same stories he told the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp―Momik, too, becomes 'infected with humanity.'" - from the publisher

"Amos Oz takes us on a journey through his childhood and adolescence, a quixotic child's-eye view along Jerusalem's wartorn streets in the 1940s and '50s, and into the infernal marriage of two kind, well-meaning people: his fussy, logical father, and his dreamy, romantic mother. Caught between them is one small boy with the weight of generations on his shoulders. And at the tragic heart of the story is the suicide of his mother, when Amos was twelve-and-a-half years old. Soon after, still a gawky adolescent, he left home, changed his name and became a tractor driver on a kibbutz." "'Jews go back to Palestine' the graffiti in 1930s Lithuania urged his family, so they went; then later the walls of Europe shout 'Jews get out of Palestine'. Oz's story dives into 120 years of family history and paradox, the saga of a Jewish love-hate affair with Europe that sweeps from Vilna and Odessa, via Poland and Prague, to Israel. Those who stayed in Europe were murdered; those who escaped took the past with them. In search of the roots of his family tragedy, he uncovers the secrets and skeletons of four generations of Chekhovian characters in this Tolstoyan drama. Meet the three sisters who got away; the old woman with a terrible fear of Levantine germs; the men who liked women, just a bit too much; cats in the classroom, bombs in the street, the dwarf in the department store; messianic kibbutzniks and self-important scholars. And be there on the night the UN said yes to Israel and his father cried; or the disastrous day a priggish little Jewish boy tried to impress a Palestinian girl. Farce and heartbreak, history and humanity make up this portrait of the artist who saw the birth of a nation, and came through its turbulent life as well as his own." - from the publisher

"From the internationally acclaimed Israeli author comes a heartbreaking and sensuous novel in verse that involves a widowed father, a prodigal son, and the son's enticing young girlfriend." - from the publisher

"Amalia and Gad, sister and brother, have been bequeathed a terrible honor: to be caretakers of a cemetery of Jewish martyrs set on an isolated mountaintop in turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe. The siblings accept this daunting privilege only to battle their fierce loneliness, wavering piety, and a burgeoning lust they feel for each other. In Unto the Soul, Aharon Appelfeld once again explores the sustenance of faith in the wake of tremulous guilt and an ambiguous God." - from the publisher

"A Jew who survived the Holocaust obsessively rides the trains of postwar Europe in search of a Nazi concentration camp guard. The guard murdered his parents and he intends to kill him." - from the publisher

"The haunting story of a Jewish family ... nine-year-old Paul and his divorced parents ... in Eastern Europe in the 1930s that prefigures the fate of the Jews during World War II." - from the publisher

"Based on the true story of a nine-year-old boy who escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside." - from the publisher

"Neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life--married to a beautiful police officer and father of two young boys. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene. When the victim's widow knocks at Eitan's door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money. It is something else entirely, something that will shatter Eitan's safe existence and take him into a world of secrets and lies he could never have anticipated." - from the publisher

"A new edition of Benjamin Disraeli's 1845 classic social novel, a story of the plight of England's working class in the 19th century. "Sybil" formed part of Disraeli's "Young England" trilogy -- a set of novels that reflected his ideological worldview of conservative and romanticized social Toryism, which came to fruition in his later political career." - from the publisher

"In its first appearance in 1892, Israel Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto created a sensation in both England and America, becoming the first Anglo-Jewish bestseller and establishing Zangwill as the literary voice of Anglo-Jewry. A novel set in late nineteenth-century London, Children of the Ghetto gave an inside look into an immigrant community that was almost as mysterious to the more established middle-class Jews of Britain as to the non-Jewish population, providing a compelling analysis of a generation caught between the ghetto and modern British life." - description of 1998 reprint edition

"Coming back was worse, much worse, than Martin Stone had anticipated. Martin Stone returns to the city from which his family was driven in 1938. He has concealed his destination from his father, and hopes to win some form of restitution for the depressed old man living in exile in London. THE LOST EUROPEANS portrays a tense, ruined yet flourishing Berlin where nothing is quite what it seems." - from the publisher

"Widely acclaimed for its warm humor, lyricism, and honesty, this accurate evocation of the 1930s has become a classic. In this delightful autobiographical novel, Dannie Abse skilfully interweaves public and private themes, setting the fortunes of a Jewish family in Wales against the troubled backdrop of the times: unemployment, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, and the Spanish Civil War." - from the publisher

"What was Jenny Diski doing in the sixties? A lot: dropping out, taking drugs, buying clothes, having sex, demonstrating, and spending time in mental hospitals. Now, as Diski herself turns sixty years old, she examines what has been lost in the purple haze of nostalgia and selective memory of that era, what endures, and what has always been the same."From the vantage point of London, she takes stock of the sexual revolution, the fashion, the drug culture, and the psychiatric movements and education systems of the day. What she discovers is that the ideas of the sixties often paved the way for their antithesis, and that by confusing liberation and libertarianism, a new kind of radicalism would take over both in Britain and America." - from the publisher

"It is 1988 and Saul Adler, a narcissistic young historian, has been invited to Communist East Berlin to do research; in exchange, he must publish a favorable essay about the German Democratic Republic. As a gift for his translator's sister, a Beatles fanatic who will be his host, Saul's girlfriend will shoot a photograph of him standing in the crosswalk on Abbey Road, an homage to the famous album cover. As he waits for her to arrive, he is grazed by an oncoming car, which changes the trajectory of his life." - from the publisher

"Norman is the clever one of a close-knit Jewish family in the East End of London--infant prodigy, brilliant barrister, the apple of his parents' eyes--until at forty-one he becomes a drug addict, confined to his bedroom at the mercy of his hallucinations and paranoia. For Norman, his committal to a mental hospital represents the ultimate act of betrayal. For Rabbi Zweck, Norman's father, his son's deterioration is a bitter reminder of his own guilt and failure. Only Bella, the unmarried sister, still in her childhood white ankle socks, can reach across the abyss of pain to bring father and son the elusive peace which they both desperately crave." - from the publisher

"For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and single, who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. When she learns that her estranged father, the pre-eminent rabbi of the London Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised, has died, she leaves behind her Friday night takeout, her troublesome romance, and her boisterous circle of friends and returns home for the first time in years." - from the publisher

"The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka’s stories, from the classic tales such as “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” and “A Hunger Artist” to shorter pieces and fragments that Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, released after Kafka’s death. With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka’s narrative work is included in this volume. " - Publisher description

"A Jew recounts a World War II massacre in Yugoslavia in which his parents died. Fourteen hundred people were killed in Novi Sad by Hungarian troops and he only escaped thanks to his mother's lover." - from the publisher

Collected stories by Sholom Aleichem

"Set in the rural Lithuanian landscape on the eve of World War II, 'Shtetl Love Song' is full of tender affection, soft irony, and sharp observations. Guided by the memory of his beloved mother, the masterful narrator takes us into the very midst of his enchanted family world, recreating the past that is irrevocably destroyed and yet fully alive in his memory. Kanovich, himself a child of a Lithuanian shtetl who survived the Holocaust almost by a miracle, made it his mission to serve, against all odds, as a custodian of the collective memory of generations of Litvaks, Lithuanian Jews." - from the publisher

"Devilspel evokes the lost world of Lithuanian Jews during the Second World War. From the lives of Grigory Kanovich's vividly drawn characters emerges a panorama of world events that shook eastern Europe and the world. The subtle art of Kanovich is his ability to create characters in the town of Mishkine, like the feisty Danuta Hadassah, the idealistic Elisheva and the complex and empathetic Catholic Cheslavas, who live within us long after the chronicle of their lives has ended. The book is more than a novel. Its story touches the heart and questions human and divine justice in a world gone mad." - from the publisher

"The Family Mashber is a protean work: a tale of a divided family and divided souls, a panoramic picture of an Eastern European town, a social satire, a kabbalistic allegory, an innovative fusion of modernist art and traditional storytelling, a tale of weird humor and mounting tragic power, embellished with a host of uncanny and fantastical figures drawn from daily life and the depths of the unconscious. Above all, the book is an account of a world in crisis (in Hebrew, mashber means crisis), torn between the competing claims of family, community, business, politics, the individual conscience, and an elusive God. At the center of the book are three brothers: the businessman Moshe, at the height of his fortunes as the story begins, but whose luck takes a permanent turn for the worse; the religious seeker Luzi, who, for all his otherworldliness, finds himself ever more caught up in worldly affairs; and the idiot-savant Alter, whose reclusive existence is tortured by fear and sexual desire. The novel is also haunted by the enigmatic figure of Sruli Gol, a drunk, a profaner of sacred things, an outcast, who nonetheless finds his way through every door and may well hold the key to the brothers’ destinies." - Publisher description

"In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini meet in Salzburg where they agree on a renewed assault on the Soviet Union. Launched in the summer, the campaign soon picked up speed, as the routed Red Army is driven back to the industrial center of Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga. In the rubble of the bombed-out city, Soviet forces dig in for a last stand. Even as the Germans advance, the Shaposhnikov matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna, refuses to leave Stalingrad. Far from the front, her eldest daughter, Ludmila, is unhappily married to the Jewish physicist Viktor Shtrum. Viktor's research may be of crucial military importance, but he is distracted by thoughts of his mother in the Ukraine, lost behind German lines." - from the publisher

"After witnessing the suicide of her father and the murder of her mother and brother upon their arrival in Auschwitz, fifteen-year-old Hanka Kaudersova is forced to choose between working in a German military brothel on the eastern front or death." - from the publisher

"The Bitter Smell of Almonds brings together for the first time Arnost Lustig's short-story collection Street of Lost Brothers, the novel Dita Saxova, and the novellas of Indecent Dreams. The works in this omnibus edition reverberate with the torments of suffering and survival, loss and contradiction. Lustig's themes are as old and as universal as humankind's search for the meaning of existence, and his characters, often confronted with people or situations they cannot comprehend, attempt to come to terms with the unthinkable and with life itself." - from the publisher

A day in the life of a small Polish-Jewish town shortly before World War II.

"Meyer Raskin is a wealthy Jewish entrepreneur running a large agricultural estate in Belarus on the western outskirts of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. His wife Chava feels out of place and yearns for the quiet life of a Jewish shtetl. Together they have six children, some of whom help their father on the estate, while others are more interested in pursuing education or getting involved in revolutionary politics. Their lives are interrupted first by the Russian revolution of 1905 and later by World War I, which eventually turns them all into refugees. This is an autobiographical novel based on the author's family." - from the publisher

"Baumgartner's Bombay is Anita Desai's classic novel of the Holocaust era, a story of profound emotional wounds of war and its exiles. The novel follows Hugo Baumgartner as he flees Nazi Germany -- and his Jewish heritage -- for India, only to be imprisoned as a hostile alien and then released to Bombay at war's end." - from the publisher

"Paul Sweetbread, a young boy in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, discovers that he is endowed with the "poisoned gift" of a perfect memory. This is a dangerous thing to have in a society where the official story is everything." - from the publisher

"A mature novel that is a fictionalized treatment of the life of the German industrialist who saved the lives of many Jews during World War II. Schindler's List is a remarkable work of fiction based on the true story of German industrialist and war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who, confronted with the horror of the extermination camps, gambled his life and fortune to rescue 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers. Working with the actual testimony of Schindler's Jews, Thomas Keneally artfully depicts the courage and shrewdness of an unlikely savior, a man who is a flawed mixture of hedonism and decency and who, in the presence of unutterable evil, transcends the limits of his own humanity." - from the publisher

"Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors." - from the publisher

"An unprecedented treasury of Yiddish children's stories and poems enhanced with original illustrations. While there has been a recent boom in Jewish literacy and learning within the US, few resources exist to enable American Jews to experience the rich primary sources of Yiddish culture. Stepping into this void, Miriam Udel has crafted an exquisite collection: Honey on the Page offers a feast of beguiling original translations of stories and poems for children. Arranged thematically--from school days to the holidays--the book takes readers from Jewish holidays and history to folktales and fables, from stories of humanistic ethics to multi-generational family sagas. Featuring many works that are appearing in English for the first time, and written by both prominent and lesser-known authors, this anthology spans the Yiddish-speaking globe--drawing from materials published in Eastern Europe, New York, and Latin America from the 1910s, during the interwar period, and up through the 1970s. With its vast scope, Honey on the Page offers a cornucopia of delights to families, individuals and educators seeking literature that speaks to Jewish children about their religious, cultural, and ethical heritage. Complemented by whimsical, humorous illustrations by Paula Cohen, an acclaimed children's book illustrator, Udel's evocative translations of Yiddish stories and poetry will delight young and older readers alike." - Publisher description

"Get ready to fall in love, experience heartbreak, and discover the true meaning of identity in this poignant collection of short stories about Jewish teens, including entries by David Levithan, Nova Ren Suma, and more! A Jewish boy falls in love with a fellow counselor at summer camp. A group of Jewish friends take the trip of a lifetime. A girl meets her new boyfriend's family over Shabbat dinner. Two best friends put their friendship to the test over the course of a Friday night. A Jewish girl feels pressure to date the only Jewish boy in her grade. Hilarious pranks and disaster ensue at a crush's Hanukkah party. From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It's a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be. You will fall in love with this insightful, funny, and romantic Jewish anthology from a collection of diverse Jewish authors." - Publisher description

"It's that time of year again--Sara's family's big Chanukah party. All the while she longs for Christmas lights and carolers in department-store windows. What she gets is a shiny gold dreidel from Tante Miriam and a warning to be careful, for it is no ordinary dreidel. Sara soon discovers that the dreidel is an entranced princess in disguise. Swept into a magical world, Sara must solve riddles and defeat demons in order to save the princess in this enchanting fantasy novel." - from the publisher

"Thirty-six stories by the Nobel Prize winner, including some of his most famous such as "Zlateh the Goat," "Mazel and Shlimazel," and "The Fools of Chelm and the Stupid Carp." - from the publisher

"Ruth David was growing up in a small village in Germany when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Under the Nazi Party, Jewish families like Ruth's experienced rising anti-Semitic restrictions and attacks. Just going to school became dangerous. By November 1938, anti-Semitism erupted into Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and unleashed a wave of violence and forced arrests. Days later, desperate volunteers sprang into action to organize the Kindertransport, a rescue effort to bring Jewish children to England. Young people like Ruth David had to say good-bye to their families, unsure if they'd ever be reunited. Miles from home, the Kindertransport refugees entered unrecognizable lives, where food, clothes -- and, for many of them, language and religion -- were startlingly new. Meanwhile, the onset of war and the Holocaust visited unimaginable horrors on loved ones left behind. Somehow, these rescued children had to learn to look forward, to hope. Through the moving and often heart-wrenching personal accounts of Kindertransport survivors, critically acclaimed and award-winning author Deborah Hopkinson paints the timely and devastating story of how the rise of Hitler and the Nazis tore apart the lives of so many families and what they were forced to give up in order to save these children." - from the publisher

"Recounts the adventures of a nine-year-old Jewish girl and her family in the early 1930's as they travel from Germany to England." - from the publisher

"Hannah resents stories of her Jewish heritage and of the past until, when opening the door during a Passover Seder, she finds herself in Poland during World War II where she experiences the horrors of a concentration camp, and learns why she--and we--need to remember the past. This critically acclaimed novel by award-winning author Jane Yolen is now available in a beautifully designed new edition. Hannah dreads going to her family's Passover Seder--she's tired of hearing her relatives talk about the past. But when she opens the front door to symbolically welcome the prophet Elijah, she's transported to a Polish village in the year 1942, where she becomes caught up in the tragedy of the time." - from the publisher