Fiction - Jewish

A family of Eastern European refugees finds a home in racially charged St. Louis in this sweeping historical novel from a National Jewish Book Award finalist. In 1916, Mags Preacher arrives in the big city of St. Louis, fresh from the piney woods, hoping...

A breathtaking novel of passion and politics, set in the hotbed of Palestine in the 1940s, by a master of twentieth-century fiction It is the eve of Britain's withdrawal from Palestine in 1948, a moment that will mark the beginning of a new Israel....

With a life journey that transcends time and place, The Tzaddik presents a metaphor for all humanity by illuminating how each of us may combine destiny with personal choice to achieve meaning and purpose. In the year 2000, a unique soul born into a...

An indefatigable, irresistible, and wildly inappropriate Jewish mother takes her 17-year-old son to school in this uproarious coming-of-age comedy Tall and scattered-looking, Joseph has just graduated from high school and is ready for college. But is college ready for him? Apparently not, judging by...

FEATURED IN QUILL & QUIRE'S 2023 FALL PREVIEWTHE GLOBE AND MAIL: BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2023CBC BOOKS CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN FALL 2023PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BIG INDIE BOOKS OF FALL 2023THE GLOBE AND MAIL BEST 100 BOOKS OF 2023THE TORONTO STAR BEST 100...

You've Got Mail meets Abbott Elementary in this "voicey and big-hearted" romantic comedy where a meet disaster between a shy guidance counselor and the hot new history teacher leads an unexpected connection (Chloe Liese, USA Today bestselling author). "Jessica Lepe absolutely sparkles in this...

After his successful first novel, Meir suffers writer's block. Then his father, poet and charmer of women, who supposedly died decades earlier, contacts him and they arrange to meet. Fragmented, troubling memories of a forgotten childhood time spent alone with his father rise to...

These two autobiographical novels lay bare the life journey of a Mexican Jewish woman reconciling herself with a Sephardic background, her parent's dictates, and her husband's and family's expectations. The only constant in her life is a need to find her own way, and...

As Russian tanks roll through the cobblestone streets of Budapest and shots ring out, young Robert and Attila Beck, inseparable brothers, peer from the boot of a toppled statue of Stalin at the first grisly signs of revolution. The year is 1956. That October...

"A funny, incisive, and keen novel of family, citizenship, and the fundamental American promise. . . . Sweeping yet intimate. Ridker's distinctive talent is his eye for both realism and comedy." --Sanjena Sathian, author of Gold Diggers A hilarious and heartfelt novel about a...

Dear Edna Sloane is a funny, fast-paced epistolary novel about fame, writers, ambition, and the ups and downs of a creative life.Edna Sloane was a promising author at the top of her game. Her debut novel was an instant classic and commercial success, vaulting...

Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history--the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president--is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt...

In Bociany, Rosenfarb offers completely absorbing portrayals of Jews and Christians from several walks of life in the shtetl. Her primary characters are the scribe's widow Hindele, her son Yacov, the chalk vendor Yossele Abedale, and his daughter Binele. Jewish relations with neighboring Catholics...

This masterwork of American immigrant literature is set in the 1920s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and tells the story of Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter of an Orthodox rabbi, who rebels against her father's rigid conception of Jewish womanhood. Sarah's struggle...

In Of Lodz and Love, Chava Rosenfarb revisits her themes of the the shtetl and pre-Holocaust Poland, of economic and political oppression, and of the upheavals that would herald a new Jewish national and political awakening. The story takes Yacov, son of Hindele, and...

A fearless yet reverent story of a young Hebrew scribe's promises to his late grandparents, who had escaped the Holocaust. "A vacation for the mind and soul."ーBrad W. Cox, author of Children of the Program Trilogy "A novel of discovery, told from a unique...

Painter-storyteller Ari's novel is a true original, with roots in Jewish mysticism and Yiddish folklore ... extravagant, charming, and deeply serious in its matter-of-fact mingling of moral history, prophecy and magic.--Kirkus Reviews A Chagall painting brought to life, the novel traces the episodic journey...

This is the story of Mara, a Jewish girl from Riverside Drive, and a hippie from Israel whom everyone distrusts, and the Orthodox wedding that unites them.Author: Tova ReichISBN-10: 0815606591ISBN-13: 9780815606598Publisher: Syracuse University PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 08/01/2001Pages: 256Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.61lbsSize: 8.28h x 5.55w x 0.59dReview...

A powerful, sensual, exciting historical novel set in the late 17th century, The Witch of Cologne tells of the persecution of Ruth, a beautiful Jewish midwife, by a representative of the Spanish Inquisition. Ruth is defended by a handsome nobleman and cleric who risks...

Author: Gabriel JosipoviciISBN-10: 085635998XISBN-13: 9780856359989Publisher: Carcanet PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 02/01/1993Pages: 144Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.40lbsSize: 8.30h x 5.30w x 0.60d

Suffering guards its mysteries, but when an upswell of antisemitism forces Rachel into hiding from the Righteous, she begins her journey to its center.The journey will take her back in history, to Sariah, a young woman whose status during the Inquisition is doubly-marred as...

Book One: The Cyrenian Trilogy: thecyreniantrilogy.com"A beacon in the dark, The Lighthouse takes readers on a heartbreaking journey...I really grew to love Simon as a character., so complex-kind, yet vengeful-got me hooked on the this series." Jadidsa Perez-Independent BookReview "The romance that develops between...

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree...I shall have some peace there. --W.B. YeatsA cheerleader touches a high school wrestler's face, running her fingers along his two-day beard. Thus begins their covert affair, one so understated he can't be certain she's...

"This compelling, character-driven story will captivate even those with limited knowledge of Jewish history, the Nazis, or Eichmann and teach valuable lessons along the way. An engrossing mystery wrapped in a coming-of-age story and the heart-rending legacy of the Holocaust." - Kirkus ReviewSusan Reich...

A teenage girl victimized by assault and prejudice. An office worker holding on to his boss's cat after a failed workplace romance. A father struggling through a ceremony for a son lost in combat. A family whose members can often predict the day they're...

With The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn, Merrill Joan Gerber demonstrates yet again her talent for pure and natural prose that penetrates the depths of human emotion. Her new novel illuminates the lives of three generations of women belonging to a Jewish American family in...

William Kaufman grew up on his mother's kugel and his father's boyhood stories. The son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and the Ukraine and one of five children, he learned how to translate his colorful childhood into tales of his own, regaling audiences of...

Alive with the scents and smells of India, this novel traces the rigid, circumscribed lives of three generations of women in an extended Jewish family in the walled city of Ahmedabad. It is a brutally honest story of Indian Jews under siege in a...

Menachem-Mendl is one of Sholem Aleichem's most delightful literary creations, a dreamy optimist who travels to New York and across Eastern Europe in search of an elusive fortune at the approach of World War I. His wife, Sheyne-Sheyndl, and children are left behind in...

Set in the Polish-Jewish shtetl of Wolbrom in the 1930s where Josef Erlich spent his youth, his account of how the character Feivel and his family observe the Sabbath has the flavor of a documentary narrative rather than a novel in the strictest sense....

Meir, the narrator of the story, is the personal servant of Nathan, a rich tycoon consumed with bizarre obsessions. The deep connection between Meir and Nathan takes its toll on the relationships each man has with the women in his life: Rina, Nathan's first...

From the deceptively simple narrative (Apple Cider Vinegar, Hurricane Bob) to the surrealist story (Dismemberers) and the magical tale (Jonah and Sarah and Lanskoy Road), the tempo fluctuates, but throughout, Shrayer-Petrov seamlessly preserves familiar voices. The stories have a genuine feel of the setting...

The powerful voice of David Shrayer-Petrov's immigrant fiction blends Russian, Jewish, and American traditions. Collecting an autobiographical novel and three short stories, Autumn in Yalta brings together the achievements of the great Russian masters Chekhov and Nabokov and the magisterial Jewish and American storytellers...

"... a stout entry in an underserved subgenre, .... Fine's prose is vivid, .... And even longtime crime readers should be aware that the content is ... graphic, from blunt discussions of child abuse.... Still, memorable set pieces like an airport shootout and the...

The classic book that shaped two generations' view of the movie business and introduced the archetypal Hollywood player Sammy Glick. He's got a machete mouth and a genius for double-cross. As Budd Shulberg--author of the screenplay On the Waterfront--follows Sammy's relentless upward progress, he...

Relocated to New York City from the Midwest, Becky Cohen follows her dream by snagging a choice entry level job at Homes and Ralph Publishing. Hanukkah is not a recognized holiday there, so Becky must remain in New York.Squished into a tiny two-bedroom apartment...

"The last novel where I rooted for every character, and the last to make me cry." - Marlon James, Elle From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory and the Oprah's Book Club selection Bewilderment comes Richard Powers's magnificent, multifaceted novel about a supremely...

Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations. And no Yiddish writer was...

A woman in her forties is a victim of a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem market. Her body lies nameless in a hospital morgue. She had apparently worked as a cleaning woman at a bakery, but there is no record of her employment. When...

A marvelous story, a challenging mystery, and a telling tale of the evils of intolerance, award-winning author Richard Zimler's The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon both compels and entertains. Just a few years earlier, Jews living in Portugal were dragged to the baptismal font and...

Israel Armstrong is a passionate soul, lured to Ireland by the promise of an exciting new career. Alas, the job that awaits him is not quite what he had in mind. Still, Israel is not one to dwell on disappointment, as he prepares to...

The writings of David Bergelson--virtually unknown to readers in the United States--are now available in this exciting collection. Composed of two short stories and a novella, this volume brings to life Bergelson's rich, elegiac prose. Golda Werman's highly literate translation perfectly captures his elusive...

Gog and Magog is a religious chronicle in fictional form. Its heroes are Hasidic rapbis. Its background is the Napoleonic wars at the end of the eighteenth century. Its scene is laid in Poland and Hungary. Although magic and superstition play their parts in...

Mr. Dixon a member of the Ulster Association of Magicians, has gone missing--along with one hundred thousand pounds in cash. Israel Armstrong, bighearted and overly inquisitive, should stick to delivering library books to out-of-the-way readers and not get involved in the investigation. But of...

First published in the late 1920s, The Island Within was Ludwig Lewisohn's first novel to focus on a Jewish theme. Emerging from the experience of World War I and the 1920s, this novel on alienation and mixed marriage (and much more) addresses itself with...

Praise for Beyond the Pale by Elana Dykewomon: "One of the most compelling novels I have ever read. . . . A work of remarkable importance."--The Village Voice"One of the best books of the year. . . . Compelling, honest and unselfconscious."--The Toronto Star"Truly...

"Lev Raphael is a daring writer--one who will not be -restrained by genre, but who tells his story with all the tools at his command. The German Money combines all of Raphael's estimable talents, delivering an emotional thriller about a totally believable contemporary family...

Isaac Babel was a Jewish writer in the former Soviet Union who rose to fame in the 1920s for books such as Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories. But as Stalin's regime grew increasingly paranoid and repressive, Babel found it difficult to write or publish....

Set in the near future within a war-torn Israel, The Jewish War chronicles the rise to power of Jerry Goldberg, a Bronx teen who has devoted his life to hastening the arrival of the Jewish Messiah. Charismatic and ambitious, Jerry changes his name to...

A timely reissue of Emma Wolf's 1892 novel, which boldly interrogates the implications of Jewish-Christian marriage and examines the role of the "new woman" within the traditions of the Jewish home. Widely regarded as a literary genius in her day, the Jewish American author...