Books Set in North America, United States, Massachusetts

This Is Not About Us, by Allegra Goodman (2026)

The novel opens as sev­en­ty-four-year-old Jean­nie Rubin­stein, the youngest of three sis­ters, is dying.  She is surrounded by her family ~ her two sisters, her sons and her nieces and nephews.  After Jeannie dies, the family gathers with food to mourn her passing.  Sadly, however, Helen, the oldest sister (and apparently a terrible cook), becomes angry when the middle sister, Sylvia, brings an apple cake to the gathering.  Everyone devours Sylvia's cake, thus beginning a feud between Helen and Sylvia.  Although they used to be close, Helen refused to speak with Sylvia.  This is the underlying thread of the novel.

As the novel unfolds, we learn of the lives of the other family members.  Helen and her husband, Charlie, had two daughters ~ Pam and Wendy.  Pam is single, much to the dismay of her parents, and Wendy is happily married to a non-Jewish woman.  Thus, Helen has no grandchildren.  A matter which greatly disturbs Sylvia.  Pam and Wendy have their own tensions and hurt feelings to deal with.

Meanwhile, Sylvia's son, Richard, is navigating a divorce and shared parenting with his ex-wife.  Their two young daughters have their own battles with their parents as they, too, must live with the consequences of the divorce.

Although the novel is "not about us", the reader, probably every family can relate to one or more of the circumstances of this family's trials and tribulations.

Read:  July 31, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, New Orleans, Louisiana and New York

Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries, by Nicholas Lemann (2026)

Read:  April 24, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, Connecticut, United States of America

As Close to Us as Breathing, by Elizabeth Poliner (2016)

Read:  August 14, 2025

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, Cuba

Hotel Cuba, by Aaron Hamburger

Read: July 26, 2024

3.5 Stars

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; Manhattan, New York

The Real Mrs. Tobias, by Sally Koslow (2022)

 

Meet Veronika Tobias, the matriarch.  She is a psychologist.  Meet Mel, her daughter-in-law, a psychotherapist.  Meet Birdie, Mel’s daughter-in-law.  Birdie is a mid-westerner and an aspiring writer who gave up her dreams to follow her husband to live in New York City.  Three women, all known as Mrs. Tobias.

 

Birdie and Micah married young and now have a young daughter, Alice.  Micah has yet to grow up and become a responsible adult.  Instead of joining his grandfather’s and father’s thriving clothing store, he operates a operates a food truck that sells, of all things, mashed potatoes.  Driving home after an evening of drinking, Mel accidently hit something, but didn’t know whether it was a person, animal, or object.  He didn’t see anyone, so continued home and never reported the incident to the police.  At the family’s weekly Shabbat dinner, he reports the incident, who urge him to own up to his actions.  

 

This sets up the scene for exploring family relationships.  Veronika and Mel can assist other people with their problems in their professional life, but struggle with their own family problems.  As the meddling mothers-in-law try to help Micah and Birdie, the younger Tobias’ must come to their own solution to their troubles.

 

This was a delightful novel, told through the eyes of each of the three women.  I would have rated this book a 5, but for Alice.  I found the dialogue with the three-year-old Alice to be totally unbelievable in an otherwise lovely book about family and love.

 

Read: January 8, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe and North America: Turkey, Spain and New York

Kantika, by Elizabeth Graver (2023)

 

Although billed as a novel, Kantika is tightly based on the life of the author’s grandmother, Rebecca Cohen Baruch Levy.  The book spans from 1907 to 1950.  Rebecca was a young girl born to wealthy Jewish parents in Constantinople.  At the time of her birth, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in a relative peaceful environment.  She even attended a Catholic school, where she spoke French.  She was also fluent in Ladino and Turkish.  After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the family lost its wealth and Turkey became increasingly hostile to its Jewish citizens.  The family was forced to leave Turkey to seek employment elsewhere.  Her father found a menial job at a synagogue in Barcelona, Spain, where echoes of the Inquisition were still resonating.  They had a very uneasy life in Spain.  Rebecca set up a dress-making business and married one of the few single Jewish men in her community.  It was an unhappy marriage; her husband was basically a good-for-nothing.  He returned to his family home in Turkey, ostensibly to find employment married, and was gone for so long, that Rebecca took their two young sons to be reunited with him.  Once there, she learned that he had died.

 

Rachel ultimately was invited to immigrate to the United States to marry the widower of her best friend.  To meet her potential new husband, she must go through Cuba, but leave her young sons with family back in Spain.  That way, she figured, that if she didn’t like her proposed intended, she could more easily return to Spain.  Upon her second marriage, she also gained a disabled stepdaughter, Luna.  Her husband’s family was content to let Luna be, but Rebecca saw the girl had potential, despite her handicap.

 

Rebecca and her new husband, Sam, set up a life in New York with her two sons, his daughter, and eventually have three children of their own, one of whom was the author’s mother.

 

Kantika is Ladino for song.  This book was a beautiful song.

 

Read:  July 15, 2023

 

4.5 Stars

 

Books Set in Europe: England

Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman (2006)

Read: March 3, 2023

3 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 Asia: Siberia, Russia and North America: New York, New York.

The Nesting Dolls, by Alina Adams (2020)

 

The Nesting Dolls focuses on three Jewish women: Daria (from 1931 to 1942), Natasha (from 1970 to 1991) and Zoe (1991).  Daria is Zoe’s great-grandmother, who was born in Russia and married the talented musician, Edward Gordon.  They and their two young daughters were sent to Siberia for a minor infraction during the Stalin years.  The janitor, Adam, of their building was also deported to Siberia.  He had a reputation for having reported on his mother for her infractions, thus was feared.  He ostensibly was being deported for not having reported Daria’s family to the authorities.  In Siberian village, however, he was granted better quarters than most if its occupants.  Adam would come to play a vital and integral role in saving Daria’s family.

 

We then skip a generation to Natasha, Daria’s granddaughter.  The family was now living in Odessa.  Natasha had a brilliant mind for mathematics and was hoping to attend the prestigious Odessa University.  Sadly, the quota for Jews was filled and Natasha was giving failing marks on her entrance exams.  She had to settle for a mediocre school and was then given a job teaching math to junior high students.  Her childhood friend, Boris, had always been in love with her, but she took him for granted.  One day she met Dima, a refusenik, who convinced her that she could be instrumental in letting the outside world know about the atrocities going on in Russia.  Natasha fell in love with Dima, and soon finds herself pregnant.  Her only way out was to marry Boris who, while being seemingly apolitical, was able to gain passage out of the USSR.

 

Finally, we meet Zoe, Natasha’s granddaughter.  She was born in America but bears the burdens and guilt imposed upon her by her grandmother and great-grandmother.  Like them, she, too, has two men in her life and must choose between what she believes is best for her family and what is best for herself.

 

Each of the three women are encased in each other’s lives, much like the nesting dolls that Russia is famous for.  Life does not always give you want you think you want, but it just might give you what you need.

 

I loved this novel.  I really felt the characters come alive.  I also loved how the author skipped a gereration and focused on the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Daria, the initial character.

 

Read:  June 15, 2021

 

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States, Atlanta, Georgia

In the Neighborhood of True, by Susan Kaplan Carlton (2019)

In the Neighborhood of True is a coming-of-age novel set in 1958 Atlanta, Georgia.  Ruth Robb’s father recently died, so her mother packs Ruth, her sister Nattie, and they move from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia to live in her grandparent’s guest house.  Ruth’s mother grew up in Atlanta society and was Queen of the Magnolia Ball, as well as a handful of other balls.  Ruth’s grandmother, Fontaine, is all set to send her granddaughters into the debutante season.

Atlanta society is white and Protestant.  Ruth’s late father was Jewish and Ruth’s mother converted.  Ruth and her sister have been raised Jewish.  This would be a stumbling block to enter Atlanta society.  Ruth and her sister attend the private school, Covenant, that was established after the ruling in Brown v. Education, so it wasn’t subject to integration.

Ruth quickly falls in the popular girls and learns Southern etiquette from the little pink pamphlet her grandmother has given her.  She decides to keep the fact that she is Jewish a secret so she can be accepted with her new friends.  She also falls hard for Davis Jefferson, the handsome young classmate.  He is attracted to her, too.

Ruth and her mother come to an agreement, that Ruth can go to school dances provided she attend Shabbos services on Saturday mornings.  The rabbi at the local synagogue is pushing for civil rights.  Ruth is walking a fine line between her religious upbring and her desire to fit in with her classmates.

Ruth is aware of the violence towards Blacks and learns about the lynching of Leo Frank in the early 1900s.  As the story leads to an act of violent antisemitism, Ruth is faced with a moral dilemma.

This story was based on an actual act of antisemitism that occurred in October 1958 in Atlanta, Georgia.  Although 60 years have lapsed since, antisemitism is on the rise.  Many synagogues in the South have police protection during Friday and Saturday services.  The attitudes and events of this novel could conceivably occur today.

Read: May 26, 2021

5 Stars

Books Set in the North America: United States: Tennessee

The Jew Store, by Stella Suberman (1998)

This book is part-memoir, part-fiction.  The author her family’s life in a small rural Tennessee town where they were the only Jews.  She changed the name of the town and the names of some of the townspeople to protect their identities.  Since much of the story occurred either before she was born, or before she was old enough to have a clear memory, had a clear memory, much is of the book is based on her imagination as to what actually happened.  The family lived in Tennessee from 1920 until 1933.  The author was barely 11 when her family moved away.

That said, this family memoir is probably not unlike the story of many Jews living in the rural south.  As she notes, many small southern towns had “Jew” stores – dry-goods stores run and operated by the town’s only Jews.  

Aaron and Rebe Bronson had both immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe/Russia.  Aaron was a self-described natural born salesman.  He set off for Nashville, Tennessee, where he had hoped to make his fortune.  He soon discovered that there were already many Jewish-run stores there; and was convinced to move to the small town of Concordia.  He and his young family arrived in Concordia in 1920 and were taken in by Miss Brookie, an eccentric agnostic who believed in being kind to others.

While Miss Brookie was understanding, none of the other townspeople had ever seen Jews before and were convinced they were a different species.  On the eve of the new store opening, Miss Brookie tells him that it will go well, provided the Klan approves.  The book goes into detail of the tensions between the towns people and the Bronson’s fears of anti-Semitism.  The book also describes the tensions between the white and Black population, often in terms that are very disarming.

Aaron named his store “Bronson’s Low-Priced Store”.  Once the store is open, however, most of the town comes to respect the Bronson’s.  Reba, however, fears for her children and wants them to grow up in a Jewish environment.  When the Depression came, Aaron fought to keep the town going, thereby winning the respect of most of the town.

I found this to be a charming story filled with humor.

Read:  January 23, 2021

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe and Asia: Hungary, Poland and Israel

In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe ~ A Dwarf Family’s Survival of the Holocaust, by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev (2004)

 

This book is about the Ovitz family, a Jewish family from Transylvania.  In 1868, the patriarch of the family, Shimshon Eizik Ovitz.  He was born to normal-sized parents; however, he acquired a mutant gene, which made him a dwarf.  He married and his wife, who was of normal height, gave birth to two daughters, both of whom were also dwarfs.  Shortly after his wife died, Shimshon remarried a young woman, only a few years older than his oldest daughter.  Soon, their family grew.  Of Shimshon’s 10 children, seven were dwarfs.  The oldest child, Rozika, was born in 1886; the youngest, Perla, in 1921.

 

The family stuck together, with the normal-sized sibling caring for the other seven.  They built their own vaudeville troupe, known as the Lilliput Troupe, and entertained neighboring villages and cities with music, skits, jokes and other entertainment.  This made them well known and afforded them a means to survive.

 

Then the Holocaust came to their part of Transylvania.  All Jews of the area were transported to concentration camps.  The Ovitz family (minus one brother) were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The novelty of having seven little people in one family caught the eye of Joseph Mengele, and they were spared, along with their 3 normal-sized sibling.  They also convinced Mengele that several other townspeople were also family members.

 

This gave Mengele an opportunity to “experiment” on the entire extended family.  In exchange, the family was afforded certain “luxuries” not afforded the other prisoners.  They all lived in fear, however, never knowing what atrocities would be committed to their bodies.  Amazingly, despite the torture inflicted upon them, all of the members of the extended “family” survived the Holocaust.  They ultimately were able to immigrate to Israel, where they spent their remaining lives.

 

This is an important story and provides insight into the human experimentation conducted in the camps.  The book, however, jumps around too much, which interrupts the flow of the story.

 

Read:  January 21, 2021

 

3.5 Stars