Book Club
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Book Circle’s Selection Introduces A Shocking Revelation In Identity
The Book Circle will meet on Thursday, May 15, at 3 p.m., in the community room at the shul, where the group will talk about Goyhood, a debut novel by Reuven Fenton. Here, a devoutly Orthodox man discovers in middle age that he is not, in fact, Jewish. He is, however, a Talmud scholar, married into one of the greatest rabbinical families in the world. Now what?
Meyer Belkin grapples with a God he believes betrayed him, and an emotionally withdrawn wife in Brooklyn, who is about to learn that her husband is a counterfeit Jew.
The Book Circle meets monthly to explore books by Jewish authors writing on topics of Jewish interest. For more information about the Book Circle and its current selection, email ctigreenport@gmail.com with a message for Susan Rosenstreich, coordinator of the group.
Random Reads
- Last Twilight In Paris by Pam Jenoff
A trail of clues leads Louise from a discovered necklace to a department store in Paris that once served as a Nazi prison. Nothing is as it seems. Will the truth be buried forever? For fans of mystery stories, this one is gripping, mixed with the triumph of love even in the darkest hours.
- Songs for The Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari
In this debut novel, Ayelet Tsabari reaches back to 1950, when thousands of Yemeni Jews immigrated to Israel in search of a better life. Two unlikely people meet in an immigrant camp and fall in love. In 1950, a young woman discovers shocking truths about her family, leading her to question what she thought she knew about her parents, her heritage and her own future.
- The Last Dekrepitzer by Howard Langer
Winner of a National Jewish Book Award, this novel traces the life and spiritual quest of Shmuel Meir Lichtbencher, the sole survivor of the obscure Dekrepitzer Hasidic sect known for its fiddle-playing Rebbes. From an isolated shtetl in the mountains of southern Poland to rural Mississippi, to Manhattan, and to a farm in New Jersey, Shmuel fiddles his prayers.
Book Circle Discovers A House And Its People Are Not What They Seem
The Book Circle will meet on Wednesday, April 30, at 3 p.m., in the community room at the shul, where the group will talk about The Safekeep, by Yael Van Der Wouden, in whose debut novel it is learned that a house and its people are not what they seem. It is a dark tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961.
“Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual and infused with intrigue, The Safekeep is about facing up to the truth of history and to one’s own desires,” says The Guardian. The book was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, and won the National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction.
For more information about the Book Circle and its current selection, email ctigreenport@gmail.com with a message for Susan Rosenstreich, of the group.
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