Book of the Times

December 30, 2014, 2:12 pm

Madame Ambassador: Behind the Scenes with a Candid Israeli Diplomat, by Tova Herzl

Tova Herzl draws on her twenty-one year career and shares her unique experiences as a single, Orthodox Jewish woman serving as Israel’s Ambassador to paint a vivid, entertaining picture of the lives and work of contemporary diplomats

September 23, 2014, 9:36 am

Making David into Goliath, by Joshua Muravchik

During the Six Day War of 1967, polls showed that Americans favored the Israelis over the Arabs by overwhelming margins. In Europe, support for Israel ran even higher. Fast forward 40 years and Israel has become perhaps the most reviled country in the world. What caused this remarkable turnabout? Making David into Goliath traces the process by which material pressures and intellectual fashions reshaped world opinion of Israel.

September 15, 2014, 11:12 am

Broken Spring, by Mark Lavie

The only American-Israeli Orthodox Jewish reporter in Cairo gives a close-up view of how Egypt’s people lost their struggle for freedom, how the West misjudged events during Arab Spring, how Egypt’s Jewish community withered and died, and why Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking never goes anywhere

August 20, 2014, 2:31 pm

Running from Giants, by Margareta Ackerman

Running from Giants follows a young boy’s struggle to survive in Nazi occupied Europe, from the forests where he and his brothers once happily played, to the horrors of the ghetto. While the narrative propels us through Srulik’s gripping true story, the black-and-white art reveals his journey through the imagination of a child caught in a land of giants. The story opens with Srulik Ackerman enjoying a peaceful childhood in the Polish town of Nowosiolki, until the Nazi whirlwind blows in leaving ten-year-old Srulik suddenly and brutally alone.

April 30, 2014, 6:27 pm

Running from Giants, by Margareta Ackerman

March 18, 2014, 4:29 pm

Uncivil War, by Keith Kahn-Harris

In Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict on the Jewish Community, Keith Kahn-Harris argues that, since 2000s, Diaspora Jewish communities have become increasingly divided over how to relate to Israel. The author explores the causes of division and describes his own innovative efforts at conflict resolution. Analyzing the various groupings – left, right, secular and religious, pro and anti-Zionist – in the UK and USA, Kahn-Harris studies the different methods used by international organizations and groups involved in developing dialogue within Jewish communities. Using these techniques along with expert help, he concludes that dialogue and civility is possible, but change is a must in order to deter serious consequences for the Jewish communities of the world.

March 2, 2014, 6:23 pm

The Wayward Moon, by Janice Weizman

The year is 854. Rahel, a young Jewish woman, is preparing to meet her fiancé for the first time. She cannot know that even as she stands observing herself in the mirror, an enemy of her father is making his way to her house. In mere minutes she will have to flee, leaving behind her fiancé, her home and her identity. Set in the Golden Age of Islam, Rahel’s journey takes her into the lives of wealthy merchants, Islamic theologians, Christian monks, illicit lovers, and shrewd innkeepers. But when she is given the opportunity to rejoin a community of Jews, Rahel must confront the difference between what she once was and who she has become.

January 21, 2014, 5:22 pm

Almost Dead, by Assaf Gavron

A thirtysomething Tel Aviv businessman, Eitan “Croc” Einoch’s life is turned upside down when he narrowly escapes a suicide bombing on the minibus he rides to work. When he lives through a second attack, and then a third, he becomes, reluctantly, a national media celebrity. Meanwhile, young Palestinian suicide bomber Fahmi Sabih lies in a coma, quarrelling with his conscience. As Fahmi’s story unfolds, it becomes clear that their paths are destined to cross again—for there is another bombing still to come—and then luck will change drastically for one or both of them.

December 3, 2013, 4:55 pm

In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, by Ruchama King Feuerman

Set in Jerusalem, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist is the story of former Lower East Side haberdasher Isaac, now an assistant to an elderly mystical rabbi; Mustafa, a physically deformed Arab janitor who works on the Temple Mount; and the beautiful Tamar, a young American woman searching for a righteous man. As if by order of one of the kabbalist’s spells, gently, delicately, these three lonely people come together to create a misfit family of their own. As these characters – Muslim and Jewish; prophets and lost souls – move through their world, they are never sure if they will fall prey to the cruel tricks of luck or be sheltered by a higher power.

November 24, 2013, 3:57 pm

Son of My Land, by Sagi Melamed

In these essays, Sagi Melamed expresses his yearning for peace and his frustration over the absurdity of war, his deep regard for the values and achievements of this country’s founders, and his concern over the shifting balance between the needs of the individual and the collective. Melamed presents an insider’s view of historical developments that are shaping Israel’s future, and a quest to identify universal values among the different streams in Israeli society, in Judaism and across the Middle East.

October 24, 2013, 2:23 pm

She Wrote On Clay, by Shirley Graetz

Three thousand and eight hundred years ago, in the city of Sippar, on the banks of the Euphrates, lltani dreams of becoming a female scribe, a profession dominated by men. In order to fulfill her destiny, she enters the gagû to become a nadītu, an elite class of monastic women. But life is not so simple and misfortunes threaten her goal. On the verge of despair, it takes all her strength to continue the difficult journey.

October 1, 2013, 11:02 am

Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation, by Yossi Klein Halevi

Acclaimed journalist Yossi Klein Halevi interweaves the stories of a group of 1967 paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem, tracing the history of Israel and the divergent ideologies shaping it from the Six-Day War to the present. Following the lives of seven young members from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade, the unit responsible for restoring Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem, Halevi reveals how this band of brothers played pivotal roles in shaping Israel’s destiny long after their historic victory. While they worked together to reunite their country in 1967, these men harbored drastically different visions for Israel’s future.

August 20, 2013, 4:12 pm

Faith Unravels: A Rabbi’s Struggle with Grief and God, by Daniel Greyber

Every year, thousands of young people die, leaving in their wake circles of grieving friends in need of support. Many look to how clergy understand loss but few religious traditions have a defined mourning process—or even a role in mourning—for non-family members. Faith Unravels speaks to the profound pain experienced by a forgotten mourner, not by making an argument about God or by offering a recipe of rituals, but by sharing a profound story of faith lost and regained anew.

August 18, 2013, 8:17 pm

Woman of Valor: A Novel, by Lihi Lapid

Woman of Valor follows the lives of two women in their first years of motherhood. One is a fictional character trying to live the happily-ever-after life we all imagined for ourselves. The second woman is the author herself, relating her real life story. It’s a story of metamorphosis, from independent working woman to mother, helpless in the face of the discovery that there’s something wrong with her small daughter – something very seriously wrong. Interspersed are actual letters from readers of Lapid’s popular newspaper column about women’s lives, sharing their experiences of juggling their many roles.

August 15, 2013, 4:48 pm

Jerusalem Maiden, by Talia Carner

In Jerusalem in 1911 under the backward Ottoman rule, the feisty Esther faces a life-long struggle between her passion for art and her society’s strict religion. Her artistic talent propels her to secretly explore worlds outside her religion and the Holy Land–and the allure of the one man forbidden to her. Until she must face the bitter question: to whom must she be true, to herself or to God?