Jewish Book Group with Rabbi Judy Shanks
Meet for lively discussions of the book of the month facilitated by Rabbi Judy Shanks. All are welcome! This is not a ‘club’ but a dynamic group of people who love Jewish books, reading, discussions and expressing strong opinions.
Book group meetings take place Wednesday mornings from 10:30 - 12:00 p.m in the Adult Lounge in the Temple House on the lower campus. The Temple Isaiah Library will have one copy of each book available for check out. Book in a Box selections come from the Bureau of Jewish Education Library in San Francisco. Twelve copies of the book are available for check-out from Nina Jones in the Temple Office. Please call or email the Clergy Administrative Assistant, Nina Jones .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to reserve your copy for pick up. Any questions or suggestions, call Rabbi Shanks (925) 283-8575 or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
October 5, 2011
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, by Peter Godwin (Memoir/Non-Fiction)
As journalist Godwin records the collapse of his native Zimbabwe, he is confronted with his father’s deathbed confession. The elder Godwin, who had always claimed to have been British, reveals himself to be a Polish Jew whose mother and sister were killed in Treblinka. From Publisher’s Weekly: “This is a tour de force of personal journalism and not to be missed.” (Book in a Box)
November 9, 2011
Petropolis, by Anya Ulinich (Fiction)
Chubby, biracial teenager Sasha Goldberg continually disappoints her overbearing mother until she manages to escape the confines of her bleakly named Siberian town, Asbestos 2. From Phoenix to Chicago to Brooklyn, this narrative follows Sasha in a smart, darkly humorous, satire about coming of age in the 20th century. (Book in a Box)
December 14, 2011
Isaac’s Torah, by Angel Wagenstein (Fiction)
Tragedy is overlaid with Jewish humor as an affable tailor survives war and nationalism in Central Europe between World War I and the death of Stalin. This darkly ironic novel, peppered with Yiddish jokes, fables from the Kolodetz shtetl and the unorthodox comments of sometimes atheist Rabbi Shmuel Ben-David, offers profound insights into life’s dilemmas and absurdities. (Book in a Box)
January 11, 2012
The Free World, by David Bezmozgis (Fiction)
“Self-assured, elegant, and perceptive. . . [Bezmozgis] has created an unflinchingly honest, evenhanded and multilayered retelling of the Jewish immigrant story that steadfastly refuses to sentimentalize or malign the Old World or the New. Sholem Aleichem might well feel proud. And perhaps so too might Philip Roth and Leonard Michaels.”—Adam Langer, The New York Times. (Book in a Box)
February 8, 2012
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, by Mordechai Richler (Fiction)
A man must pursue his dreams, and Duddy has big dreams. You will be charmed by him, you will hate him, and you will most certainly keep reading as his scheme to get out of Montreal’s Jewish ghetto and buy a piece of land does battle with his moral principals. (Book in a Box)
March 21, 2012
A Man, and a Woman, and a Man, by Savyon Liebrecht (Fiction)
This novel by one of Israel’s most celebrated writers reveals the complex underpinnings of an adulterous romance. Hamutal and Saul’s liaison blossoms unexpectedly in the Tel Aviv nursing home where they come to visit their ailing parents, offering them emotional shelter as they struggle with their relationships with their families. (Book in a Box)
April 11, 2012
The Life Before Us, by Remain Gary (Emile Ajar)
Momo, an orphaned Arab adolescent, is raised by his ailing surrogate mother, Madame Rosa, a survivor of Auschwitz and former lady of the night. A streetwise kid in Belleville, Paris’ immigrant slum neighborhood, Momo narrates a world filled with pimps, prostitutes and witch doctors as he takes care of Madame Rosa. This profoundly moving story, told with sensitivity and black humor, won the Prix Goncourt, France’s premier literary prize, and was the basis for the 1968 film starring Simone Signoret. (Book in a Box)
May 9, 2012
The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God, by Rabbi David J. Wolpe (Non-Fiction)
Wolpe tackles the difficult, age-old challenges of injustice, the suffering of the innocent, and the prospering of the wicked. Using Biblical passages, rabbinic sources, Midrashic homilies, and Hassidic tales, he projects the image of a God intimately concerned with human beings. His poetic writing is imbued with mystical overtones containing faint echoes from the works of Abraham Heschel.
June 13, 2012
My Father’s Paradise, by Ariel Sabar (Memoir/Non-Fiction)
For almost 3,000 years, a tiny Jewish enclave existed in what is now the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The Jews and their Christian and Muslim neighbors spoke the ancient tongue of Aramaic. Sabar’s father, Yona, was born there but immigrated to the U.S. when the creation of the state of Israel created hostile conditions for Iraqi Jews. Yona, however, maintained strong emotional ties to his native language and culture even as he ascended to a prominent academic position at UCLA. After the birth of his own son, he felt a desire to reconnect with his father and their shared cultural heritage. Their joint visit to their ancestral town of Zakho rekindles memories of the ancient community while strengthening the ties between father and son. An involving memoir that works as both a family saga and an examination of a lost but treasured community.