51 results for "Jewish Fiction"

The weight of ink

Kadish, Rachel
"An intellectual and emotional jigsaw puzzle of a novel for readers of A. S. Byatt's Possession and Geraldine Brooks's People of the Book Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. As the novel opens, Helen has been summoned by a former student to view a cache of seventeenth-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation. Enlisting the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and in a race with another fast-moving team of historians, Helen embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive"Aleph."Electrifying and ambitious, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Weight of Ink is a sophisticated work of historical fiction about women separated by centuries, and the choices and sacrifices they must makein order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind"--
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2017 567 pages

Legends

Littell, Robert
Now a TNT series starring Sean Bean, from the producers of"24"and"Homeland" Robert Littell is today widely considered one of the true grand masters of American spy fiction, hailed for his profound grasp of the ambiguous world of international espionage, grippingly displayed in his thirteen novels. His most recent international bestseller, The Company, was praised as being "popular fiction at its finest" by the Washington Post Book World and as "one of the best spy novels ever written" by the Chicago Tribune. Now delving into one agent's labyrinth of memories and past identities "legends," in CIA parlance Legends again displays Littell's unparalleled prowess as a seductive storyteller exploring the clandestine but always very human world of secret agents."
Penguin Books 2006 385 pages

The matzah ball

Meltzer, Jean
"Oy! to the world. Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt is a nice Jewish girl with a shameful secret: she loves Christmas. For a decade she’s hidden her career as a Christmas romance novelist from her family. Her talent has made her a bestseller even as her chronic illness has always kept the kind of love she writes about out of reach. But when her diversity-conscious publisher insists she write a Hanukkah romance, her well of inspiration suddenly runs dry. Hanukkah’s not magical. It’s not merry. It’s not Christmas. Desperate not to lose her contract, Rachel’s determined to find her muse at the Matzah Ball, a Jewish music celebration on the last night of Hanukkah, even if it means working with her summer camp archenemy—Jacob Greenberg. Though Rachel and Jacob haven’t seen each other since they were kids, their grudge still glows brighter than a menorah. But as they spend more time together, Rachel finds herself drawn to Hanukkah—and Jacob—in a way she never expected. Maybe this holiday of lights will be the spark she needed to set her heart ablaze" -- back cover.
Piatkus 2021-09-28 403 pages

A Jewish mother from Berlin: a novel ; Susanna : a novella

Kolmar, Gertrud
In A Jewish Mother from Berlin, Martha Jadassohn's seemingly conventional life plunges into chaos after a brutal attack on her only child. As Martha assumes the self-imposed mission of combing Berlin for the man who raped five-year-old Ursa, she encounters Berlin's staid and seamy sides - a world peopled with working-class weekend gardeners, middle-class cultural snobs, transvestites, a former Spanish dancer turned hostess with a secret, and a Jewish lawyer who clings rigidly to the rule of law. During her harrowing quest, Martha becomes obsessed with a handsome, shallow "Aryan" type in a relationship that intensifies her solitude and alienation. Kolmar peels away the layers of Martha's outward restraint to bare the soul of a woman slowly shattered by a callous society in which Jews are outcasts and women preyed upon. Another heroine on a quest for love and self-expression propels the lyrical novella Susanna, a finely wrought psychological portrait of an outsider. The ethereally beautiful Susanna sets out on a tragic search for her lost lover, only to find herself floundering in a world where everyone's perceptions clash with her own.
Holmes & Meier 1997 202 pages

The Puttermesser papers

Ozick, Cynthia
Yearning for a life of the mind, Ruth Puttermesser finds herself mired in the lowest circles of city bureaucracy. Her love life hopeless, her fantasies more influential than wan reality, she nevertheless turns out to be the best mayor New York City has ever elected. Soon enough, though, paradise gained becomes paradise lost, and--even for a wistful visionary like Puttermesser--the problem of disappointment remains unresolved.
Alfred A. Knopf 1997-05-27 235 pages

They called her Rebbe, the maiden of Ludomir

Winkler, Gershon
Chana Rochel Werbermacher was a remarkable child, imbued with a love of Torah and a fervent desire to learn. Her destiny beckoned, and she became a scholar-and the focus of great controversy in the shtetl of Ludomir and the Jewish community at large. Many sought her advice. They called her "Rebbe," for that is what she was. The story of her struggle, her courage, and her life will be an inspiration for generations to come. You will not forget her.
Judaica Press 1991 235 pages

Mr. Perfect on paper: a novel

Meltzer, Jean
"As the creator and CEO of the popular Jewish dating app J-Mate, matchmaker Dara Rabinowitz knows the formula for lasting love--at least, for everyone else. When it comes to her own love life, she's been idling indefinitely. Until her beloved bubbe shares Dara's checklist for "The Perfect Jewish Husband" on national television and charming news anchor Chris Steadfast proposes they turn Dara's search into must-see TV. As a non-Jewish single dad, Chris doesn't check any of Dara's boxes. But her hunt for Mr. Perfect is the ratings boost his show desperately needs. If only Chris could ignore his own pesky attraction to Dara--a task much easier said than done when Dara starts questioning if "perfect on paper" can compete with how hard she's falling for Chris"--
Mira 2022 399 pages

Mazel

Goldstein, Rebecca
Mazel means luck in Yiddish, and luck is the guiding force in this magical and mesmerizing novel that spans three generations. Sasha Saunders is the daughter of a Polish rabbi who abandons the shtetl and wins renown as a Yiddish actress in Warsaw and New York. Her daughter Chloe becomes a professor of classics at Columbia. Chloe's daughter Phoebe grows up to become a mathematician who is drawn to traditional Judaism and the sort of domestic life her mother and grandmother rejected.
Univ. of Wisconsin Press 2002 368 pages

The daring life and dangerous times of Eve Adams

Katz, Jonathan
"Historian Jonathan Ned Katz uncovers the forgotten story of radical lesbian feminist Eve Adams, and her long-lost book Lesbian Love. Born Chawa Zloczewer into a Jewish family in Poland, Eve Adams emigrated to the United States in 1912, took a new name, befriended anarchists, sold radical publications, and ran lesbian-and-gay-friendly speakeasies in Chicago and New York. Then, in 1925, Adams risked all to write and publish a book titled Lesbian Love. Adams's bold activism caught the attention of the young J. Edgar Hoover and the US Bureau of Investigation, leading to her surveillance and arrest. Adams was convicted of publishing an obscene book and of attempted sex with a policewoman sent to entrap her. Adams was jailed and then deported back to Europe, and ultimately murdered by Nazis in Auschwitz. In The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams, acclaimed historian Jonathan Ned Katz has recovered the extraordinary story of an early, daring activist. Carefully distinguishing fact from fiction, Katz presents the first biography of Adams, and the publisher reprints the long-lost text of Adams's rare, unique book Lesbian Love."--Publisher's website.
Chicago Review Press 2021 285 pages

The sacrifice of Tamar

Ragen, Naomi
Tamar Finegold is twenty-one years old, the happy, beautiful bride of a rising young Rabbi in one of Brooklyn's insulated, ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Having married the man of her dreams and taken her place as a wife, and hopefully soon-to-be mother in her community, Tamar feels as though the world is at her feet. But her secure, predictable existence is brought to an abrupt end when she is raped by an intruder. Fearing the unbearable stigma and threat to her marriage that could result from telling the truth, Tamar makes a fateful decision that changes her life forever. Her feeling that she did the only thing she could under the circumstances explodes when years later a shocking, undreamed of turn of events finally forces her to confront her past, once and for all.
HarperPaperbacks 1995 386 pages

The covenant

Ragen, Naomi
"Living in terror-torn Jerusalem, Elise Margulies constantly fears for the safety of her loved ones. Confined to bedrest during a difficult pregnancy, she happily awaits the return of her husband and little girl from a ballet recital, only to find that her worst fears have finally been realized. All seems lost until a phone call to her grandmother in America unexpectedly revives a decades-old oath, creating a force that transends time and place, to rescue her loved ones. Over the course of five terror- and hope-filled days, the ties that bind two generations forge a potent alliance against contemporary evil"--Cover page 4.
St. Martin's Griffin 2005-10-01 276 pages