Books Set in North America, California, USA

Porcupines, by Fran Fabriczki (2026)

Porcupines is a very funny novel about Sonia, young illegal immigrant from Hungary living in California, and her young daughter, Mila.  Sonia left Hungary as an 18-year-old to visit her sister and overstayed her visa.  In Hungary, her family led a very secular life, but her sister has become very Orthodox in the United States.  After she becomes pregnant, Sonia cuts herself off from her family.

New to America and new to motherhood, Sonia navigates live in California, while concealing her past.

This was a quick and funny novel.

Read: June 24, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Jerusalem, Israel and Russia

A Woman in Jerusalem, by A. B. Yehoshua (2004)

Read: September 13, 2025

3 Stars

Books Set in North America, Massena, New York, United States

The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town, by Edward Berenson (2019)

Read:  June 8, 2025

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe, Lisbon, Portugal

The Day of Atonement, by David Lisa (2014)

This novel takes place in 1755, the year of the Great Lisbon Earthquake.  The Inquisition is still alive and well and going after the New Christians.  Ten years earlier, 13-year-old Sebastião Raposa was whisked out of Lisbon, but his parents were killed by the Inquisition.  When Sebastião Raposa returns, he poses as the Englishman Sebastian Foxx, and vows to seek vengeance on those who harmed his parents.

Sebastian also wants to help Charles Settwell, an English trader who smuggled him out of Portugal.  Settwell has now fallen on hard times with the English after having converted to Catholicism.  Sebastian, upon learning of Settwell's circumstances vows to avenge Settwell, as well.

The novel is full of twists and turns.  Who is actually the villain, and who is to be trusted.  A satisfying historical novel.

Read: December 16, 2024

3 Stars

Benjamin Weaver Series:

    A Conspiracy of Paper; August 28, 2003

    A Spectacle of Corruption; June 28, 2010

    The Day of Atonement; December 16, 2024

    

    

Books Set in Europe and Asia; Poland and Israel

Once We Were Home, by Jennifer Rosner (2023)

Read: July 15, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: New York, New York

Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate, by Letty Cottin Pogrebin (2015)

 

Zach Levy is the son of two Holocaust survivors.  Although not raised in a religious household, Zach’s family was culturally Jewish and his parents insisted on fighting for Jewish survival.  Zach promised his mother he would marry a Jewish woman and raise his children to be Jewish.  As he studied for his bar mitzvah, he was became obsessed with his Jewish identity and refused to participate in the Christmas festivities in his public school.

 

By the time Zach has become an attorney for ACLU, his parents have both passed.  He fulfills his mother’s promise, marries a Jewish woman, and has a daughter.  All was seemly going fine until his wife suddenly springs it on him that she has found someone else and is moving to Australia, taking their daughter with her.

 

In his legal practice, Zach becomes involved in controversial social issues.  As such, he becomes involved in a community program to discuss Jewish-Black relationships.  It is there that he meets Cleo Scott, a Black radio host and social activist.  She grew up in a religious Baptist household.  From the start, Zach has informed Cleo of his promise to his mother.  Still, as their relationship develops, they fall in love and move in together.

 

His love for Cleo forces Zach to consider his identity as a Jew.  Who is a Jew?  How can he keep his promise to his mother and yet continue his relationship with Cleo?

 

The title of the book might suggest that this novel is a rom-com.  It is not.  It is a thoughtful discussion about identity with dialogue about Jews and Jewish tradition and theology without being heavy-handed.

 

I loved this book.

 

Read:  September 9, 2023

 

5 Stars

 

Books Set in North America, California, United States

Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder (2021)

A novel about Jewish guilt, sex and food.

Read: August 25, 2023

3 Stars

Books Set in North America: American South: St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee

Marching to Zion, by Mary Glickman (2013)

This historical novel delves into the struggles of Jews and African-Americans in the early half of the 20th Century.  The book begins when Mags Preacher, a young African-American woman, leaves her home in the rural countryside and moves to St. Louis, Missouri.  She has dreams of learning the beauty trade so she can open a salon back in her hometown.  The first person she encounters upon arriving in St. Louis is Magnus Bailey.  The only job she can get is working with Mr. Fishbein, a Jewish refugee who runs a funeral home that serves the Black families in the town.

Fishbein had fled Eastern Europe amid the pogroms that killed his wife and child.  When he left Europe, he brought with him his adopted daughter, Minerva, known as Minnie.  She had lost her family in the violence against Jews.  Seeing her family killed experiences as a very young girl caused her to be a very troubled young woman after arriving in America.

Mags is happily working at the funeral home and eventually marries George McCallum, the manager, and they live in a small apartment attached to the funeral home.  After the violent race riots in St. Louis in 1917, Fishbein’s funeral home is totally destroyed.  Fishbein and Mags barely escape with their lives, but George is killed.  Mags then disappears from the story.

The novel moves from Mags Preacher to the very troubled love story between Minnie, a fiery red-head Magnus.  Interracial relationships were criminal offenses at the time.  Fishbein, Minnie and Magnus move from St. Louis to Memphis to looking for a safer place to live.  The novel describes life for Jews and African-Americans during the Depression through the mid-1930s.  Fishbein realizes that there is no safe place for Jews in America, especially for his troubled daughter and her lover, Magnus.

After I finished the book, I realized that Mags Preacher, the young woman at the beginning of the story had completely disappeared.  What happened to her?

Read: August 8, 2023

3.5 Stars

Books Set in North America: Venice, California United States

Künstlers in Paradise, by Cathleen Schine (2023)

 

Twenty-four-year-old Julian has just lost his job, his roommate, and his New York apartment.  He runs back to his parents, expecting them to bail him out, but they don’t.  They are tired of his expectation of privilege.  So, he sets across the country to stay for a while with his 94-year-old grandmother, Salomea Künstler, who is recovering from a broken wrist.

 

Salomea Künstler was just 11-years-old when she fled with her parents and grandfather from Vienna at the start of World War II in 1939.  Although very young at the time, she was just old enough to know of the horrors of the Holocaust.  While not religious Jews, they were Jews none-the-less, and barely escaped with their lives. Much of her family perished.  She came from a family of musicians, and Los Angeles and Hollywood seemed a logical place for the family to land.

 

Salomea Künstler, known to friends as Mamie, still lives in the family bungalow along the beach in Venice, California.  Just as Julian arrives and begins interviewing for jobs, the world shuts down because of Covid-19.  Julian is now stuck with his grandmother and her aging housekeeper, Agatha.

 

With nothing much to do, Mamie begins to share with Julian the stories of her life.  Mamie has wonderful tales of life in Vienna and America with her beloved grandfather.  In America, her family also rubbed elbows with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars ~ Greta Garbo, Otto Preminger, Thomas Mann …

 

As Mamie is in the twilight of her life, Julian has yet to come into his own.  Being with Mamie and Agatha, however, jolt him into reevaluating what is important to him in the quiet world of the pandemic.

 

This was a delightful story.

 

Read: July 25, 2023

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: New York, New York

Brazen, by Julia Haart (2022)

Brazen is a whiny memoir about a woman who was born in Moscow, Russia to secular parents.  As a young child, her parents immigrated to America, where they became ultimately joined a large ultra-Orthodox community in New York and were essentially cutoff from the modern world.  Later, as an adult, she left the community to enter the world of fashion and become a shoe designer.

As her family became indoctrinated into the ultra-Orthodox community, Haart was taught to believe that any deviation from the community’s norms would incur the wrath of God.  Because her family was not always religious, her parents were concerned about making a good marriage match.  Although she had some say in her marriage partner, Haart essentially married a young man she had met only 3 times prior to the wedding.  They had little in common and he expected his wife to work and keep the home while he studied Torah.

She described how, at age 19 and with no formal higher education, she taught 17- and 18-year old girls in her community.  The education was limited to religious instruction, as subjects such as math and science were forbidden.  Eventually, her husband gets an outside job and the family moved to an Orthodox community in Atlanta for a few years.

Somehow, the family has money and Haart describes the high-end clothing that she wears, after altering them to conform to the stringencies of the community – long skirts, high necks, long sleeves so no skin is showing.

After Haart left the community, my interest in her life began to wane.  She wanted to be a shoe designer.  Suddenly, everyone she met wanted to both help her and take advantage of her.  She admitted that she was naïve to the outside world, but still …  She also describes in cringy detail her sexual encounters.  Suddenly, everyone wants to have sex with her, and she often seems to have no objection to their wishes.

What she left out, however, is the reaction of the community once she left.  She mentions one instance in which she was invited to a family wedding but was never invited to a family event after that.  She implies that her children have left the community but doesn’t explain what and how that happened.  One daughter married young before Haart had left the community.

The book could have used some better editing.  Some of her accounts of biblical stories seem a bit “off.”

I read the book to the end, but found it very whiny and egocentric.

Read:  March 25, 2023

2.5 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England

Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman (2006)

Read: March 3, 2023

3 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States: New York, New York

Snow in August, by Pete Hamill (1997)

Read: August 21, 2022

5 Stars

Books Set All Over the World

Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora, by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein (2020)

Journalist, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, grew up Jewish in Sweden where she encountered antisemitism at a young age.  Her family was not originally Swedish, and she looked different from blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates.  This later was the seed for her quest to explore how Jews managed to survive in other countries throughout the world.  In the course of a few years, the author traveled to several countries, including Cuba, Iran, Siberia, Venezuela and Morocco, to delve into the small Jewish communities.

The first stop in her book (although not necessarily her first stop chronologically) was the small island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia.  There she found the Jewish community was thriving, albeit in a self-imposed ghetto.  The community kept to itself, and its non-Jewish neighbors left them alone.  In Iran, the Jewish community emphasized that the country’s constitution provided them the freedom to practice their religion, subject, however, to Sharia law and refrain from showing support for Israel.  Synagogues in Iran were unguarded, unlike synagogues in Europe and the United States.

The author observed vibrant Jewish communities in places where one would not think such a community would be possible.  In each country and community, she visited, she observed how local practices impacted the community.  In some places, such as Venezuela, the community was deeply traditional, but not necessarily religious.  Despite the horrors and poverty of the country, the Venezuelan Jews were a tight-knit community protecting and looking out for each other.

In discussion each country, the author also provided a brief history of how the Jews came to be in that particular country.  It was interesting to read of the Jews of Cuba and Cuba’s interaction with the United States from a Swedish perspective.  American’s view the Cuban Revolution very differently.

I found this to be a very fascinating look at Jews throughout the world.

4.5 Stars

Read: March 29, 2022

Books Set in Europe; Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, by Rosemary Sullivan (2022)

 

In August 1944, a German SS officer received a telephone tip of Jews hiding in a building located at Prinsengracht 263.  The exact details of the raid on the address have been lost to history, but the raid resulted in the capture of the Frank family and 4 other individuals who had been in hiding in the Annex for the past 2 years.  Anne, her sister Margot, and her mother did not survive the concentration camp where they had been deported.  Anne’s father, Otto, did survive.  Anne’s diary also survived.  With the publication of her diary, Anne became a symbol of the millions who died at the hands of the Nazis.

 

This book attempts to answer the question of who betrayed the secret hiding place?  In 2016, a team of forensic scientists, a former FBI agent, historians, and others, was put together to comb through hundreds of documents, interviews, and other evidence to find the answer … or at least an answer.  This book is the story of the evidence compiled by the Cold Case Team.

 

The author notes that the Netherlands was responsible deporting more Jews to concentration camps than other European countries.  Near the beginning of German Occupation, a Jewish Council, made up of Jews, was formed, ostensibly to help the Jews of the Netherlands and fend off anti-Jewish actions.  Soon, however, the Council was ordered to help organize the selection of Jewish deportees to concentration camps.  The Cold Case team extensively examined the pasts of the members of the Council for clues to see if one could have betrayed the Franks.

 

Members of the Council would have had access to lists of addresses where Jews of the Netherlands might be.  Thus, Council members could have retained such lists as insurance to be used to save their lives, leading to the conclusion that another Jew betrayed the Franks.  The Cold Case Team seems to ignore the fact that whether or not a Council member was the betrayer of the Franks, the Council members certainly betrayed hundreds of other fellow Jews.

 

The book examined a number of possible betrayers and the Cold Case Team eliminated them one-by-one, until singling one out.  The suspect was a member of the Jewish Council, thus would have access to addresses of hiding places.  The Cold Case Team believed that Otto Frank knew his betrayer, but for reasons known only to himself, kept his identity to himself.

 

The Team concluded that a man named Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary, was the most likely betrayer.  He is believed to have had a list of at least 500 names, which he may have been holding as insurance to be used to save his life and that of his family.

 

I have mixed feelings about this book.  Clearly, a lot of time and money was spent searching for the betrayer of the Frank family.  There are many, many characters in this book, which makes it a bit confusing, especially since many names and titles are non-English.  But does find out out who actually betrayed one family, when so many families were betrayed really matter?  The take-away is that when faced with a life-or-death situation, one might easily betray another to save one’s self.

 

Read:  February 21, 2022

 

3 Stars

 

Books Set in the World

People Love Dead Jews, by Dara Horn (2021)

 

I first heard of this book through Dara Horn’s podcast of the same name.  After listening to the podcasts, I knew I wanted to read the book.  I know of Dara Horn mostly through her novels.  This book is not a work of fiction.  Instead, it is a collection of 12 well-researched essays of how Jews are represented throughout history, how museums are built to honor Jewish heritage, just so long as evidence of live Jews is not present.  At the Anne Frank House, for example, a young Jewish worker was informed that he could not wear his kippah.

 

Horn recounts how she visited the city of Harbin, China, a city that was built primarily when the Russians sent their Jews there.  For a brief period in the 1930s, the city was a haven for Russian Jews.  Then the War broke out.  The Jews were either forced to leave or were slaughtered.  Today, there is a new “memorial” honoring the Jewish citizens of this city.

 

Horn explores antisemitism in the United States and the world in this book.  It is both disturbing and thought provoking.

 

Read: January 2022

 

4 Stars

Books Set in Asia; Pegu

The Jewel Trader of Pegu, by Jeffrey Hantover (2008)

 

In the late 1500s, Abraham, a young, widowed Jewish trader, traveled from the ghetto of Venice to seek jewels in Southeast Asia to send back to his uncle in Italy.  He traveled to Pegu, a kingdom in Burma, where he encounters a way of life vastly different from the one in which he grew up.  The novel is written mostly in letter form that Abraham sends to his cousin in Venice.  Abraham describes the lush jungle of Pegu and the people and the customs, as well as his struggles with keeping up his religious practices.

 

He found that the local people are tolerant of foreigners, and he resides in a house that had previously been occupied by another Italian trader.  Abraham is not the only European in Pegu.  Jesuit priest have come to convert the Buddhist to Christianity.  The Jesuits treat Abraham with scorn, but the local population he encounters are tolerant, although somewhat mystified by Abraham’s religious practices.

 

Abraham is fascinated by some of the local customs but is horrified to learn that it is a practice for foreigners to sleep with a bride-to-be on her wedding day, before sleeping with her husband.  Abraham at first resists this honor, but ultimately succumbs to this practice, although not without his coming to grips with his moral dilemma.

 

Young Mya entered the town to marry, but first was given to Abraham.  The next morning, her groom failed to come for her.  He had overindulged the night before and died, leaving Mya a widow.  Abraham allows her to stay in his house, and soon falls in love with her.

 

Abraham works with Win, a local broker, and as they become friends, they discuss their religious and cultural differences.  They respect each other’s differences and form a strong bond, which will help them both during the pending uprising.  Abraham realizes that, as a Jew, he has far more freedom in Pegu than he had in Italy, despite the cruelty of the Peguian king.

 

Pegu and a rival kingdom begin a violent war.  Abraham realizes that he must depart, but not without Mya, whom he as entered into a common-law marriage.  She is pregnant, so he doesn’t want to return to Italy until after the birth of their child.  They depart for deep into the country.  On the journey, Abraham becomes ill and dies, leaving a young, pregnant wife in the care of Win.

 

I enjoyed this novel.  The author provided vivid descriptions of the country as it existed so many years ago.

 

Read:  November 21, 2021

 

4 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Cairo, Egypt

Sipping from the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt, by Jean Naggar (2008)

 

Sipping from the Nile is a memoir of a young women who grew up in a wealthy and privileged Jewish family in Egypt.  The author was born in December 1937, on the cusp of World War II.  She grew up in a pampered and sheltered environment, so the horrors of the War largely escaped her.

 

Although her family had Italian passports, they had roots in Egypt going back centuries.  Over the years, the family had amassed an enormous fortune through banking and lived in a large mansion with many servants.  They were integral members of high Egyptian society and rubbed shoulders with high level diplomats and kings.

 

As a young girl growing up, she and her family traveled extensively throughout Europe and she (as well as other members of the family) was fluent in many languages, including English, Italian, French and Arabic.  When she entered high school, she was sent to a boarding school in England.  It was her first time being separated from her family and, although it gave her some freedom, she was also very along among her British classmates.

 

It wasn’t until the Suez crisis in 1956 that the author began to realized that being Jewish in Egypt had consequences.  Although she describes the losses of their home and property, as she recounts the family’s life in exile, they seemed not to have suffered too badly financially.  She is still able to maintain a high-society lifestyle.

 

I found the first part of the memoir more interesting that the latter part.  I tired of reading of all the “fabulous” connections her family made: winning Olympic medals, meeting all the rich and famous, all the designer clothing her mother had commissioned, etc.

 

Interestingly, it wasn’t until after she moved to the United States that she began to realized that her Jewishness was and identifying factor.  While growing up in Egypt, although her family was Jewish and observed all the rituals and holidays, being Jewish was just a fact of life (until after WWII and the country itself had a massive political turnabout).

 

Scattered throughout the book are numerous family photos and scene of Egypt.  They added to the book, and I enjoyed perusing them.

 

Read: October 4, 2021

 

3.5 Stars

 

 

Books Set in Europe: Austria

The Conversion, by Aharon Appelfeld (1998)

 

In the years before World War II, Karl Hübner was living in a small town in Austria.  He worked in the municipal office, but, because he was a Jew, knew that he wouldn’t be able to rise any higher in his job.  He, thus, converted to Christianity solely to advance his career.  Prior to his decision to convert, he had visions of his mother telling him that it would be okay to convert for job advancement.  Most of his close classmates from school had already converted, thus he was simply taking steps to conform to the norms of his town and for social acceptance.

 

Karl, now a Christian, does, indeed get the promotion.  He is surprised to learn, however, that the promotion did not bring him the happiness that he envisioned.  Karl and his school friends learn that conversion to Christianity does not social acceptance in a country that fears Jews.  They are often reminded that the conversion did not truly make them non-Jews.  Although Karl was brought up in a secular Jewish home, he did absorb its values.  He has a strong moral code and stands up for injustice.  When he sees Jews being mocked and abused, he calls out the abusers.

 

Karl lives with his housekeeper, Gloria.  It was not clear to me whether or not Gloria was Jewish, but she maintains the Jewish rituals and traditions that she learned from Karl’s mother.  She observes the High Holidays each year, which at first surprised the newly converted Karl.

 

Spoiler alert:  As antisemitism increases in their Austrian town, Karl decides to return to the home of his parents.  He resigned his job, sold his house and traveled to Rosow.  Sadly, antisemitism is everywhere.  Although Karl and Gloria were initially very happy in their new location, the local peasants ultimately burn down their house with them in it.

 

Read:  June 6, 2021 (First Read: March 16, 2008)

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: Switzerland

The Gustav Sonata, by Rose Tremain (2016)

 

Gustav Perle grew up in poverty in Switzerland in the years at the end of World War II.  His father died when he was too young to have any clear memory of him and is mother, whom he adores, is distant and bitter.  In kindergarten, Gustav befriends Anton Zweibel, a boy his same age, who is a promising musician.

 

The novel is written in three parts.  In Part One, Gustav and Anton are young boys who are constant companions.  Anton’s family, who are wealthy, take Gustav on vacations with them.  Emilie, Gustav’s mother is not keen on Anton and his family because they are Jewish.  She is bitter because she blames her husband’s death on saving Jews during the War.

 

Part Two focuses on Emilie and her early life and how she fell in love with Erich Perle.  Erich was an Assistant Police Officer.  In his position, he helped Jewish refugees into Switzerland after the country had closed its doors.  When his actions were discovered, he lost his job and was reduced to finding a menial job with poor pay.  Although Emilie loved Erich and called referred to him as a hero, she could never forgive him for plunging the family into poverty.

 

Gustav and Anton are middle-aged in Part Three.  After having been separated for years, each with his own life, the two friends come together again.  The bond they formed as children remained strong.

 

This was a beautifully written novel.

 

5 Stars

 

Read:  May 28, 2021

 

 

Books Set in the North America: United States

ExUs, by Josephus IV (2014)

 

This is a cautionary tale of what could happen.  The book was written in 2014, but the events happened in the “future”, which was shortly after 2017.  The United States Congress enacted the Victims Law of 2017, which ostensibly gave an advantage to minorities.  Its impact, however, largely targeted Jews.  As more and more restrictions were placed on American Jews, they found themselves without jobs, property and the ability to travel.  Technology had advanced so that a mere pinprick could determine one’s ethnic status.  People who never knew they were Jewish but had one Jewish grandparent were suddenly ostracized.

 

The novel is narrated by a young computer hacker.  He was offered a job sponsored by the NSA that was designed to build security walls within that agency.  He was given high clearance, so was also able to view extensive files, where he realized that the government was backing an Exodus of Jews from the United States.

 

This is a very fast read, but has a lot of food for thought.

 

Read: January 27, 2021

 

4 Stars