Book Club

Book Circle meets Thursday, July 24, at 3:15 p.m., in the CTI garden.

In 1789, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking for a sign, a signal, an answer to an enigma that has haunted him since childhood: Was Bach murdered? Allegro by Ariel Dorfman follows the investigation, from the salons of London to the streets of Paris. Parallel is the rise of Mozart, his fame and his losses.

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.

This month, the Book Circle will read and discuss The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad, winner of a National Jewish Book Award for Hebrew Fiction in Translation. The group will meet on Thursday, June 19, at 3 p.m., in the community room of the shul.

Three Israeli women, their lives altered by immigration to the United States seek to overcome crises in their lives. In three novellas, the celebrated Israeli writer Maya Arad probes the demise of idealism and the generation gap that her heroines must confront.

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.

Author Reuven Fenton visits the Book Circle Group

Reuven Fenton, pictured right, author of the novel Goyhood, the Book Circle group’s May selection, visited the session to talk about the storyline and his inspiration for writing it.

The narrative conceives a devoutly Orthodox man, who discovers in middle age that he is not, in fact, Jewish. He is, however a Talmud scholar, married into one of the great rabbinical families in the world. The big question: Now what?

The sessions are held on Zoom and in person. Those attending in person display the book cover. Susan Rosenstreich, in blue, leads the group’s monthly meetings.

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.