02/18/2025 10:54:49 AM
By Robin Jacobson
As a celebrated portrait artist, John Singer Sargent had his choice of commissions at the turn of the twentieth century. The most aristocratic, glamorous, “high society” figures of England and the United States clamored to have him paint their portraits. Yet the largest commission Sargent ever undertook for a private patron was...Read more...
02/18/2025 10:54:42 AM
By Robin Jacobson
After Sasha Vasilyuk’s grandfather died in Donetsk, Ukraine, in 2007, her grandmother made a shocking discovery. In an old briefcase stashed under a bed, she found a confession letter her husband had written for the Soviet KGB in the 1980s. The letter upended everything she thought she knew about her husband’s military service during World War II.
The letter and its stunning...Read more...
01/03/2025 10:57:46 AM
By Robin Jacobson
The shadow of the past hovers over the present in the remarkable debut novel, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Shortlisted for the 2024 prestigious Booker Prize, the novel earned a place on multiple “Best Book of 2024” lists across the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.
The Netherlands in the 1960s
The Safekeep opens in the Netherlands in 1961. World...Read more...
01/03/2025 10:57:40 AM
By Robin Jacobson
At a book event in 2019, a librarian posed a fateful question. She asked the assembled authors whether they might like to collaborate with another writer one day. Award-winning authors Steve Sheinkin and Ruty Sepetys say that they looked at each other, and “the idea was sparked” for what would become The Bletchley Riddle, their action-packed World War II-era novel...Read more...
11/04/2024 11:11:07 AM
By Robin Jacobson
It’s the stuff of family lore and American history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, over 10 million European immigrants crossed the Atlantic Ocean to America. These included 2.5 million Jews, many of them fleeing pogroms, persecution, and poverty in the Czarist Russian Empire. Courageous and determined, they built new...Read more...
06/28/2024 11:32:35 AM
By Robin Jacobson
For years Maya Arad has won enthusiastic praise for her fiction, even being described in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as “the finest living author writing in Hebrew.” That alone is reason to dive into The Hebrew Teacher, the first of her books to be translated into English. Readers may be surprised, however, to discover that the book’s three wise and witty novellas are set in...Read more...
06/04/2024 09:25:25 AM
By Robin Jacobson
Near the turn of the 20th Century, the Dreyfus Affair thrust France into turmoil. In 1894, the French army falsely accused and convicted Jewish military captain Alfred Dreyfus of treasonously selling military secrets to Germany. In a humiliating public ceremony, Dreyfus was stripped of his military insignia and his sword broken while crowds shouted, “Death to the...Read more...
06/04/2024 09:25:20 AM
By Robin Jacobson
How can a book full of societal evils like racism, antisemitism, and child abuse manage to be heartwarming and uplifting? This is the magic of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the recent novel by celebrated author James McBride.
Like a murder mystery, the novel opens with the discovery of a dead body. In 1972, Pennsylvania state troopers question an...Read more...
06/04/2024 09:25:15 AM
By Robin Jacobson
Some adult book clubs choose one “young adult” title a year to read, simply to sample from the many excellent books in that category. This year, two outstanding young adult historical novels illuminate lesser-known Jewish experiences in Romania and the United States during World War II: The Blood Years by Elana Arnold and We Are Not Strangers by Josh Tuininga. Teens...Read more...
06/04/2024 09:25:10 AM
By Robin Jacobson
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo imaginatively blends the genres of historical fiction and fantasy. This captivating novel is set in 16th century Spain, a time and place linked to the author’s family history.
In 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain, Bardugo’s Jewish ancestors fled to Morocco and Egypt. They lost contact...Read more...
01/30/2024 02:30:22 PM
By Robin Jacobson
The great German poet-playwright Goethe had a deep fondness for a grand oak tree in the woodlands near Weimar. One autumn morning in 1827, he famously picnicked beneath its shade. A century later, when prisoners were felling trees in the area to make way for a concentration camp, the guards told them to be sure to spare that particular tree. Soon, Buchenwald buildings...Read more...
01/30/2024 02:30:16 PM
By Robin Jacobson
There’s an old Jewish story about two women sitting on a park bench together. One sighs. Her friend reproves her, “I thought we agreed not to talk about the children!”
The tsores and worries of parents are the subject of two thought-provoking new novels by celebrated Israeli authors. How to Love Your Daughter, by Hila Blum, won the prestigious...Read more...
01/30/2024 02:30:08 PM
By Robin Jacobson
“Pa pleaded. "We can get a hundred and sixty acres out west, just by living on it . . . If Uncle Sam's willing to give us a farm . . . I say let's take it.” Laura Ingalls Wilder (By the Shores of Silver Lake)
In 1862, Congress enacted the Homestead Act, hoping to encourage settlement of America’s Western territories. This...Read more...
10/05/2023 09:29:26 AM
By Robin Jacobson
Intimate Strangers: A History of Jews and Catholics in the City of Rome by Frederic Brandfon tells the epic story of Jews in Rome across more than two millennia. It’s perfect for anyone planning to travel to Italy, armchair tourists, or history lovers.
The book is a treasure trove of intriguing historical nuggets – Jews of Michelangelo’s time enthusiastically visiting...Read more...
08/30/2023 11:45:28 AM
By Robin Jacobson
The Postcard by French author Anne Berest is a remarkable true story of a Jewish family told in the form of a novel. It opens with the arrival of a mysterious postcard at Berest’s childhood home in the Paris suburbs in 2003. The front of the postcard shows the Opéra Garnier, a famous Paris landmark, and the back has four handwritten names – “Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie, Jacques.”...Read more...
08/30/2023 11:44:55 AM
By Robin Jacobson
Fans of multi-generational tales of Jewish families have three new non-fiction options, each fascinating: The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon; The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty by Natalie Livingstone; and Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty by Andrew Meier.
The...Read more...
05/12/2023 10:09:39 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Early in 2020, Julian Künstler receives an unexpected phone call from his 93-year-old grandmother, Salomea (“Mamie”) Künstler. Mamie invites Julian to stay with her in California for a few weeks while she recovers from a broken wrist. She and her elderly housekeeper-companion, Agatha, need a short-term...Read more...
05/11/2023 01:01:28 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
“The righteous bloom like a date-palm . . .” Psalm 92:13
Among the glories of ancient Israel were its flourishing Judean date palm trees, celebrated for their beauty, shade, and sweet fruit. Long extinct, the Judean date palm is experiencing a miraculous rebirth, thanks to two remarkable Israeli scientists who saw potential in...Read more...
04/03/2023 10:01:19 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
The Times of Israel calls it “the great whodunnit of Zionist lore.” In 1933, Chaim Arlosoroff was murdered in Tel Aviv. Only 34 years old, Arlosoroff was head of the political department of the Jewish Agency in Palestine and a prominent leader in David Ben Gurion’s Mapai Party. Who killed him? And why? The...Read more...
02/23/2023 09:43:50 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott is a rollicking adventure story of magical realism, a spellbinding blend of old and new folklore. Comical yet profound, the novel explores serious subjects – inherited trauma, the roots of mob violence, and the power of folklore to preserve cultural history. Widely...Read more...
01/19/2023 02:29:28 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
During an unwelcome visit from Covid-19, I dosed myself with soup, lemon drops (good for masking that metallic Paxlovid taste), and three novels: The Cost of Living by local author Saul Golubcow (detective fiction), Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum (science fiction), and Eternal by Lisa Scottoline (historical...Read more...
12/30/2022 10:03:37 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Which three persons, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? The New York Times Book Review regularly asks this question in interviews. After reading Georgetown Law professor Brad Snyder’s fascinating biography, Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment, I propose...Read more...
10/26/2022 10:36:23 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
With 20/20 historical hindsight, it can be unbearable to read stories of European Jews in the 1930s who turned down opportunities to flee Europe. If only we could reach back in time and insist that they start packing. Tragically, they didn’t know then what we know now about the danger, destruction, and death that lay ahead.
Even...Read more...
10/26/2022 10:36:19 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
My pharmacist dad reveled in books about epic breakthroughs in medicine and science. On my bookshelf, I found his copy of The Double Helix (1968), a memoir by James Watson of his discovery with Francis Crick of the structure of DNA, a feat for which they won a Nobel Prize in 1962. This discovery paved the way for stunning scientific...Read more...
09/09/2022 11:43:20 AM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Israeli author Omer Friedlander, only 28 years old, made a stunning entrance onto the literary stage this past spring. Big-name publisher Random House published his debut short story collection, The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, and announced that it would also publish Friedlander’s upcoming novel. To add to the excitement,...Read more...
08/04/2022 12:57:51 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Early Shabbat morning, October 16, 1943, Nazi soldiers stormed Jewish neighborhoods in Rome, rounding up terrified Jews. They imprisoned them for two days in a military college near the Vatican before dispatching over 1,000 Jews to Auschwitz. Famously, Pope Pius XII made no protest.
Two fascinating new books look at...Read more...
05/24/2022 01:05:55 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
On October 6, 1973, air raid sirens shattered the solemn quiet of Yom Kippur afternoon in Israel. Egypt and Syria had launched a two-front surprise attack. Within a few days, Israeli casualties were skyrocketing, and the state had lost alarming numbers of planes and tanks. Fearing for Israel’s survival, Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan...Read more...
05/24/2022 01:01:42 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
As I write this, Ukraine remains under siege. News programs feature a nightly parade of diplomats, retired generals, and political historians speculating about a new global world order, comparing and contrasting today’s state of affairs with the Cold War period. For young people (ages 10-14) curious about the Cold War, three...Read more...
03/22/2022 02:05:48 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Here are two unusual – and terrific – crime thrillers to jumpstart your summer. For a comic, warmhearted romp, try The Prison Minyan by Jonathan Stone. Want a darker, more complex tale? Read How to Find Your Way in the Dark by Derek Miller.
The Prison Minyan
This delightfully original, witty novel opens in Otisville Correctional, a...Read more...
03/22/2022 02:01:59 PM
By Robin Jacobson, Library & Literary Programs Director
Every day, children benefit or suffer from their parents’ choices. Such is life, and such is the stuff of literature, especially when a parent’s options are radically shaped by societal upheaval.
Two recent, thought-provoking novels trace the far-reaching consequences of parents’ choices during tumultuous times: More Than I Love My...Read more...
