Temple Isaiah

Read In the New Year: The Jewish Book Group Goes Israeli

Beginning October, Rabbi Shanks’ monthly Jewish Book Group explores “The Many Sides of Israel: Israeli Authors Look at the Modern State in Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry.” Eight titles were chosen to illuminate facets of the Israeli psyche, both flattering and controversial.

Last year’s group discussed The Israelis, which looked at the modern population, by Donna Rosenthal. This year’s group will read its counterpoint, Israelis: Founders and Sons, by Amos Elon, “a fascinating account of how and why Zionism led to the creation of Israel”, with insights on differences between the pioneer generation and their Israeli-born children. Then, an aging son of a brutal Nazi and the Israeli granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor attempt to escape history and gain personal rapprochement. Discover their fate in November with Blue Nude, a novel by local author Elizabeth Rosner, who will speak with the Book Group during a field trip to the Jewish Book Fair. Susan Nathan’s The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide, is a hard look at treatment of the Israeli Arabs, and guaranteed to heat up discussion in December.

In January, A. B. Yehoshua introduces readers to Mr. Mani, a six generation Jewish family saga arranged in five conversations,” with the voice of only one of the two speakers present on a page. “Yehoshua reaches beyond realism to the realms of mystery, coincidence and fate” to recreate the indomitable spirit that keeps families alive. February brings contemplation of The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell, and chosen by the National Yiddish Book Center as one of the “100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature”. It is said that every Israeli soldier carries not only a weapon, but also a copy of Yehuda Amichai’s poems into the fight.  This accessible translation, does justice to both the sense and sensibility of Amichai’s words.

March provides what one critic calls “reality checks on Israeli life” in Apples From the Desert: Selected Stories, by bestseller Savyon Liebrecht. In contemporary settings she goes eye-to-eye with human conflict, using the immediacy to demonstrate the “power of history, of memory, in individual lives”. For April, S.Y. Agnon’s novel Only Yesterday, in English for the first time since its debut in 1945, recreates the second Aliya to Palestine, between 1900 and WWI. Strange and sometimes feckless characters surprised by the sheer banality of fate populate his prose, which “has a folkloric quality analogous to the bold simplifications of Chagall.” In May, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, by Yossi K. Halevi, invites readers to share his two year search for common ground among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Israel. Rather than avoiding religion as a source of conflict, he embraces it one person at a time, overcoming his own fear and anger to begin the often painful but rewarding trip into understanding.  Book Group fliers with ordering information are in the Temple Library, and copies may be purchased via the Temple Gift Shop. Dates and titles for the Book Group meetings follow.

The Many Sides of Israel:
Israeli Authors Look at the Modern State in Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry:

Thursday at 10:30 am
MEET IN THE TEMPLE HOUSE ADULT LOUNGE EXCEPT WHEN INDICATED *


√ try Remainder Dealer Alibris.com to purchase this title

• √ Oct. 19 = Israelis: Founders and Sons, by Amos Elon.  Penguin, 1983. ISBN 014069695.  Non-fiction.
• *Nov. 6 = Blue Nude, by Elizabeth Rosner. Ballantine Books, 2006. ISBN 0345442229. Fiction. Field trip to the Contra Costa Jewish Book Fair. Meet with the author at 3 pm; Chai tea follows.
• Dec. 14 = The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide, by Susan Nathan.  HarperPerennial, 2006. ISBN 0007195117. Non-fiction.
• Jan. 18 = Mr. Mani, by A. B. Yehoshua.  Harvest, 2004. ISBN 0156030160. Fiction.
• Feb. 15 = The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell.  Rev. & exp. ed. Univ. of California Pr., 1996. ISBN 0520205383. Poetry.
• Mar. 15 = Apples From the Desert: Selected Stories, by Savyon Liebrecht. Feminist Pr., 2000.  ISBN 1558612351. Fiction (Short Stories).
• Apr. 19 = Only Yesterday, by S.Y. Agnon. Princeton Univ. Pr., 2000. ISBN 0691095442. Fiction.
• May 17 = At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden, by Yossi K. Halevi. HarperPerennial, 2002. ISBN 0060505826. Non-fiction.
  
  
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