Folgen
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What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters. Whether she’s testing the fragile borders of fidelity, embracing the taboo power of female friendship, escaping her family for the solitude of the mountains, grappling with what to do with her frozen embryos, or letting go of the children she imagined for the ones she’s raising, Lipson pushes beyond the easy, surface stories we tell about ourselves to brave less certain territory.
Mothers and Other Fictional Characters is a shimmering love letter to our forgotten selves—and the ones we’re still becoming.
Nicole Graev Lipson’s writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, selected for The Best American Essays anthology, and shortlisted for a National Magazine Award. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the LA Review of Books, The Millions, Nylon, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe.
Nicole holds a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Emerson College. Originally from New York City, she lives outside of Boston with her family.
In our conversation, we’ll talk about how Nicole reconnected with Jewish tradition (beginning with a book!), the vital importance of bringing more complexity to the experience of motherhood, and Nicole’s tender and nuanced approach to parenting a child who doesn’t fit into gender norms.
Nicole Graev Lipson's Five Books:
1. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
2. I and Thou by Martin Buber
3. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich
4. Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry
5. Mothers and Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson
The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at [email protected]
For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father's gone, his mother is struggling with mental health issues, and he's now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn't matter at all, like he's nothing. So when a kid at school actually tells him he's nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker pulls some strings and gets him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to juvie. There, he meets Josey, the 107-year-old Holocaust survivor who stopped bothering to talk years ago. And when Alex and Josey form an unlikely bond, with Josey confiding in him, Alex starts to believe he can make a difference--a good difference--in the world. If he can truly feel he matters, Alex may be able to finally rise to the occasion of his own life.
Gayle Forman has written several bestselling novels, including those in the Just One Day series, Where She Went, and the #1 New York Times bestseller If I Stay, which has been translated into more than forty languages and was adapted into a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz. Her first middle grade novel, Frankie & Bug, was a New York Times best children’s book of the year.
In our conversation, we’ll discuss the link between anxiety and creativity, Judaism's instructions for living with loss, and how all of us are capable of rising to the occasion of our lives.
Gayle Forman's Five Books:
1. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
3. The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
4. Orbital by Samantha Harvey
5. Not Nothing by Gayle Forman
Other Books Mentioned:
Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children by Marjorie Ingall
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy by Anand Giridharadas
Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Playground by Richard Powers
Getting to Sorry by by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy
The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at [email protected]
For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Fehlende Folgen?
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Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were thrust into the spotlight as The Griffin Sisters, a pop duo that defined the aughts. Together, they skyrocketed to the top, gracing MTV, SNL, and the cover of Rolling Stone. Cassie, a musical genius who never felt at ease in her own skin, preferred to stay in the shadows. Zoe, full of confidence and craving fame, lived for the stage. But fame has a price, and after one turbulent year, the band abruptly broke up.
Now, two decades later, the sisters couldn’t be further apart. Zoe is a suburban mom warning her daughter Cherry to avoid the spotlight, while Cassie has disappeared from public life entirely. But when Cherry begins unearthing the truth behind their breathtaking rise and infamous breakup, long-buried secrets surface, forcing all three women to confront their choices, their desires, and their complicated bonds.
Jennifer Weiner’s books have spent over five years on the New York Times bestseller list, including several times at #1. She has written over a dozen works of fiction and the nonfiction collection Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016), which was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Opinion section in addition to numerous other publications. Her novel “In Her Shoes” was turned into a movie starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. Jennifer graduated from Princeton University in 1991 and lives in Philadelphia with her family.
In our conversation, we’ll discuss Jennifer’s feminism, raising daughters, and why she has never felt more Jewish than right now.
Jennifer Weiner's Five Books:
1. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
2. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
3. Dark Tower by Stephen King
4. Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley
5. The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at [email protected]
For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Award-winning author Dara Horn is also a professor of Jewish literature. In discussing the Tevye story, she went into a deep dive, explaining each of the daughters’ marriages as a confrontation with a different political challenge to Russian Jews. I was riveted and wanted to share with you as well!
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Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books, including the novels The World to Come, All Other Nights, and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Her latest book is the graphic novel One Little Goat.
At the Passover seder, an out-of-control family cannot find their afikoman and as a result, they are trapped at a seder that cannot end. Six months in, a wisecracking talking goat shows up at their door with bad news: Thousands of years of previous seders have accumulated underneath their seder, and their afikoman is stuck in one of them. Now the family’s “wise child” must travel down with the goat through centuries of previous Passovers to find it– and to discover the questions he needs to start asking.
Dara Horn is also the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among many other honors. Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard.
Dara Horn's Five Books:
Mr. Mani by A B Yehoshua
Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem
The Last Consolation Vanished by Zalmen Gradowski
Journey to the Land of No by Roya Hakakian
One Little Goat by Dara Horn
The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Gila Pfeffer (author of Nearly Departed.)
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or Facebook at The Five Books Podcast
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at [email protected]
Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
When Georgia Hunter was fifteen years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times best seller, We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series. One Good Thing is Georgia’s second novel.
In our conversation, Georgia will talk about the hold that multi-generational Holocaust stories have on her, about kindness as resistance, and her realization after publishing her family’s story that she could write another book.
Georgia Hunter's Five Books:
1. Maus by Art Spiegelman
2. Send for Me by Lauren Fox
3. James by Percival Everett
4. The Lost Baker of Vienna (galley) by Sharon Kurtzman
5. One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at [email protected]
Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Rob Kutner’s new irreverent book on Jewish history, The Jews: 5000 Years and Counting covers every major moment in Jewish history from Adam and Eve to Tuesday’s rerun of Seinfeld. This book will make you laugh, it might inadvertently make you learn, and it might just be a balm for our times that you didn’t know you needed (Simon & Schuster).
Rob Kutner is an Emmy, Peabody, Grammy, and TCA-winning writer for late-night TV including The Daily Show and TBS’ Conan. He is also the author of the humor books including Apocalypse How (Running Press, 2008) and the kids’ comedy-horror graphic novel Snot Goblins and Other Tasteless Tales (First Second, 2023).
He has also written material for the Oscars, Emmys, and two White House Correspondents Dinners, and was named a “SuperJew” by Time Out New York.
In our conversation, Rob will tell us about how going to a Christian school reinforced his own Judaism, how he made sure that the diversity of stories were included in his Jewish history, and his story about ordering a lulav and etrog to the Daily Show office.
Rob Kutner’s Five Books:
1. The Big Book of Jewish Humor by Moshe Waldoks and William Novak
2. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
3. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
4. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
5. The Jews by Rob Kutner
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at [email protected]
Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Isola is inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, and is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.
Allegra Goodman’s books include Sam, The Family Markowitz, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories.
Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In our conversation Allegra will tell us about what it was like growing up in a traditional Jewish household in Honolulu. We’ll hear about her fascination with shtetl life and how her novel Kaaterskill Falls, about an orthodox community in upstate New York, was inspired by George Eliot. And she’ll tell us about the secret Jewish character in her new book, Isola.
Allegra Goodman’s’ Five Books:
Rifka Bangs the Teakettle by Chaya M. Burstein
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
1984 by George Orwell
Homer’s Odyssey, in the Lattimore translation
Isola by Allegra Goodman
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
Send us your thoughts! [email protected]
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Today, we’re excited to introduce you to Chutzpod, a podcast that offers frank and wide-ranging conversations on how to build a good life.
Each week on Chutzpod, Rabbi Shira Stutman and co-host Hanna Rosin tackle life’s toughest questions through a Jewish lens. If you’ve ever wondered whether to forgive a friend who won’t apologize, felt annoyed by service dogs on your flight, or pondered how to heal our broken world, this podcast is for you.
In this episode, Shira and Hanna delve into listener-submitted questions, blending real-life stories with millennia-old wisdom to help you navigate the complexities of life. Whether you're a Hebrew school truant, a proud yeshiva graduate, or someone seeking inspiration without the synagogue schlep, Chutzpod welcomes everyone striving for a meaningful life in these trying times.
Listen to Chutzpod wherever you get your podcasts. -
We just finished our very first season of The Five Books! While we're preparing Season 2, we'd love to hear what you thought of our show. You can email us at [email protected].
We will be back on March 18 with some incredible authors for Season Two like Allegra Goodman, Georgia Hunter, Gayle Forman and more. Thank you for listening, sharing with your friends and loved ones, and for being a part of this incredible community of Jewish Book readers. -
We Would Never is a riveting literary page-turner that maps the extremes to which a family will go in order to protect their own.
No one appears more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—has always tried to do what is expected of her and is regarded as the family peacemaker. But is anyone, including Hailey, who she has always seemed to be?
Inspired by a true story, We Would Never is a gripping mystery, an intimate family drama, and a provocative exploration of loyalty, betrayal, and the blurred line between protecting and forsaking the ones we love most.
Tova Mirvis is the author of the memoir The Book of Separation as well as four novels, We Would Never, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine and Real Simple, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her family.
Our conversation explores the fine line between what it means to be an insider vs an outsider, the way the past retains a pull on the present, and the stretchiness of moral boundaries. Throughout, Tova reflects on the ways in which venturing beyond our comfort zones can be both enriching and destabilizing.
Tova Mirvis’ Five Books:
All-of-a-Kind Family, Sidney Taylor
My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
The Postcard, Anne Berest
Songs For the Brokenhearted, Ayelet Tsabari
We Would Never, Tova Mirvis
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head-on.
Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past with her future, the author recounts the defining moments of her life in a poignant tale of scarcity and plenty.
How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman’s search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother, and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.
Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She has been an editor at Today’s Parent and Chatelaine, and a columnist and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail. When she turned forty, she had a now-or-never feeling in her bones and quit her job to enroll in culinary school. After that, she began to explore her relationship with food on the page, seeing her childhood in the restaurant business and her background as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor in a new light. Bonny was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Toronto with her husband and little dog, Bruno. Her three almost-adult children come and go. She holds a master of fine art in creative nonfiction and teaches writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. How to Share an Egg is her first book.
In our conversation, Bonny remembers how she protected her Holocaust survivor father from the antisemitism she experienced as a child. She shares how she found the strength to tell both her father’s story and her own, and on the foods that have meant the most to her.
Bonny Reichert's Five Books:
Forever by Judy Blume
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Still Life With Remorse by Maira Kalman
How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
Olive Days is a novel about Rina Kirsch, a young mother and Modern Orthodox Jew in Los Angeles. But a contradiction burns at her center: Rina is an atheist. She is also stymied in her life and marriage.
Hoping to reinvigorate their relationship, Rina’s husband convinces her to partake in a night of wife swapping with other Orthodox couples. Rather than preserve her marriage, however, the swap plunges Rina down a heady path that begins with a rekindled passion for painting and culminates in an intoxicating affair with Will, her married art teacher. Rina must decide if it’s worth sacrificing everything she’s ever known to fully inhabit the uncharted landscape unfolding before her, one where her needs take precedence. (Counterpoint Press)
Jessica earned her MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and her BA in journalism from USC. She lives with her husband and children in the Sonoran Desert.
In our conversation, Jessica will expound on the complexities of belief, identity and women’s desire. Jessica delves into how her own atheism sits alongside her Jewish practice, and why she thinks of herself as a pessimist who finds joy in life.
Jessica Elisheva Emerson’s Five Books:
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Olive Days by Jessica Elisheva Emerson
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong.
The Jacobson children reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when each sibling is facing drama in their own life.
When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters, Laura and Sophie, go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together. (Penguin Random House)
Jackpot Summer was a USA Today bestseller, a Skimm Reads Pick and one of She Reads Most Anticipated Contemporary Fiction 2024.
Elyssa Friedland is the acclaimed author of Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, The Floating Feldmans, The Intermission and Love and Miss Communication. Elyssa is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School and currently teaches novel writing at Yale. She lives with her husband and three children in New York City.
Elyssa reflects on how exotic American-born parents felt to her as a kid, and how 10/7 led to some last minute changes to Jackpot Summer.
Elyssa Friedland’s Five Books:
Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
Jackpot Summer by Elyssa Friedland
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions. -
By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost her mother to breast cancer and her father to colon cancer. A simple blood test confirmed she carried the BRCA1 gene—which put her at high risk of developing cancer herself. Determined to break the cycle of early death in her family, Gila decides to undergo an elective double mastectomy.
This memoir follows her journey as she becomes a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, grows up, falls in love, and enters motherhood, before her life is derailed yet again. Her double mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast.
Drenched in Gila’s dark humor, Nearly Departed is a story about thriving against the odds, committing to what’s important, and leaving a better legacy than the one you inherited. (The Experiment).
Gila Pfeffer is a Jewish American writer and humorist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Today.com, and elsewhere. Gila’s monthly “Feel It on the First” campaign reminds women to prioritize their breast health. She splits her time between New York City and London.
In this intimate conversation, Gila reflects on why she’s grateful for her “big mouth,” and her impulse to find meaning - and humor - in even the most painful experiences.
Gila Pfeffer’s Five Books:
God Knows by Joseph Heller
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences by Gila Pfeffer
Other Resources:
The Life of Viktor Frankl
The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger
Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions -
The Trade Off is the story of a brilliant and ambitious young woman striving to find her place amid the promise and tumult of 1920s Wall Street.
Bea Abramovitz has a gift for math and numbers, and for finding patterns within the stock market. But in the 1920s, in a Lower East Side tenement, opportunities for (Jewish) women on Wall Street don't just come knocking.
It's easier for her golden-boy twin brother, Jake, who longs to reclaim all their parents lost after fleeing the pogroms in Russia to come to America. Well intentioned but undisciplined, Jake has a charm that can carry him only so far on Wall Street. So Bea devises a plan to be the brains behind her brother, acting as broker. As Jake's reputation, his heedless ego, and the family fortune soar, Bea foresees catastrophe: an impending crash that could destroy everything if she doesn't finally take control. (Lake Union)
Samantha Greene Woodruff has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and spent fifteen years at Viacom’s Nickelodeon before leaving to parent her two young children. Her first novel, The Lobotomist’s Wife was a #1 Amazon bestseller and Amazon First Reads Pick. The Trade Off is her second novel.
Samantha expounds upon her love of Christmas, what it meant to step into her Jewish identity post 10/7, and her conflicted feelings toward wealth.
Samantha Greene Woodruff’s Five Books:
The Diary of Anne Frank
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl and The Whispers by Ashley Audrain
The Trade Off by Samantha Greene Woodruff
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council.
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions -
The New Jewish Canon is both text and textbook, a rich collection of major Jewish ideas from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. With over eighty excerpts from key primary source texts and insightful corresponding essays by leading scholars, on topics of history and memory, Jewish politics and the public square, religion and religiosity, and identities and communities, The New Jewish Canon promises to start conversations from the seminar room to the dinner table. (Academic Studies Pres)
Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Yehuda is a leading thinker on the essential questions facing contemporary Jewish life. He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, the host of the Identity/Crisis podcast. He writes, teaches, and lectures widely about contemporary Jewish life.
Yehuda is trained as a scholar of ancient Judaism and rabbinics with a doctorate in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and previously served as a member of the faculty at Brandeis University, where he held the inaugural Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation.
In this wide ranging conversation Yehuda will reflect on his unusual upbringing as the child of a diplomat with a front row seat to Middle East politics, on falling in love with second century rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, and his optimistic take on a new path forward for Israel and the Middle East.
Yehuda Kurtzer’s Five Books:
As a Driven Leaf, by Milton Steinberg
Zakhor, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
In The Land of Israel, by Amos Oz
The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden
The New Jewish Canon, edited by Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire E. Sufrin
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council.
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions -
On Being Jewish Now is an intimate and hopeful collection of 75 meaningful, smart, funny, sad, emotional, and inspiring essays from today’s authors and advocates about what it means to be Jewish, how life has changed since the attacks on October 7th, 2023, and the unique culture that brings this group together.
Contributors include Mark Feuerstein, Jill Zarin, Steve Leder, Joanna Rakoff, Amy Ephron, Lisa Barr, Annabelle Gurwitch, Daphne Merkin, Bradley Tusk, Sharon Brous, Jenny Mollen, Nicola Kraus, Caroline Leavitt, and many others. (Zibby Books)
Zibby Owens is the bestselling author of Blank: A Novel, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, Princess Charming, and the forthcoming novel Overheard. She is the editor of three anthologies: On Being Jewish Now, Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology and Moms Don’t Have Time To Have Kids: A Timeless Anthology. Zibby is the founder and CEO of Zibby Media, which includes the Zibby Books boutique publishing house, Zibby’s Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, CA, the award-winning daily podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, which she hosts, Zibby’s Book Club, and Zibby Retreats for book lovers.
Zibby shares what draws her to books and writing, and what compels her to speak up for Jewish authors.
Zibby Owens' Five Books:
Night by Elie Wiesel
10/7 by Lee Yaron
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty
On Being Jewish Now, edited by Zibby Owens
Other Books & Resources:
Slow Motion by Dani Shapiro
On Being Jewish Now Substack
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council. November 24 to December 24 is Jewish Book Month! Celebrate with Jewish Book Council. https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions -
Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream reveals the complex life and work of Henrietta Szold, renowned as the founder of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. She later moved to Mandate Palestine to help shape education, health, and social services there. The pinnacle of her career came in her seventies, when she took on the task of directing the Youth Aliyah program, which rescued thousands of young people from the Nazis and resettled them in Palestine.
Using Szold’s copious letters, diaries, and essays, along with other archival documents, Francine Klagsbrun reveals Szold as a multi-faceted human being whose impact on women’s lives as well as on education and health systems still resonates. (Jewish Lives Series, Yale University Press).
Francine Klagsbrun has also had a tremendous impact on the story of American Jewish women. Born in 1931, she has been a passionate advocate for women in Jewish religious life. Francine is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 2017.
She has been a columnist for New York Jewish Week and Moment, is a contributing editor to Lilith, and is on the editorial board of Hadassah Magazine. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Ms. magazine, and other national publications.
Charming and wry, Francine reflects on her unlikely Jewish education as a girl in the 1930s and 40s, on the seeds of her feminist activism, and on why she is grateful to have reinvigorated Szold’s legacy.
Francine Klagsbrun’s Five Books:
The Bible
Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Wouk
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies
Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream, by Francine Klagsbrun
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council. November 24 to December 24 is Jewish Book Month! Celebrate with Jewish Book Council. https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions -
In Magical Meet Cute, Faye Kaplan is definitely happy alone. That is, until she finds her town papered with anti-Semitic flyers. Desperate for comfort, Faye drunkenly turns to her pottery. A golem protector is just what her town needs…and adding details to make him her ideal man can’t hurt, right?
When a mysterious stranger turns up the next day, Greg seems too good to be true, causing Faye to wonder if his appearance might be anything but a coincidence. (Mira)
Jean started her career in television where she won numerous awards including a Daytime Emmy. She spent five years in rabbinical school before her chronic illness forced her to withdraw.
In this conversation, Jean reflects on “second wave” Jewish books and finding herself represented on the page, on Jewish magic (or being a “Jewitch”), and Jewish joy.
Jean Meltzer’s Five Books:
The Bible
Once More with Chutzpah by Haley Neil
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Love you a Latke by Amanda Elliot
Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer
Books and Resources on Jewish Magic:
Jewish Magic and Superstition Joshua Trachtenberg
The Golem Redux by Elizabeth R. Baer
The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague by Yudl Rosenberg
The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Throwing Sheyd (Podcast)
The Vigil (Movie)
https://www.sefaria.org/
The Jewish Joy Community:
https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Jewish-Joy-Book-Club-61555704527625/
https://www.instagram.com/thejewishjoybookclub/
https://thejewishjoybox.com/
Other Books Jean Mentioned:
Marry Me by Midnight by Felicia Grossman
The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council. November 24 to December 24 is Jewish Book Month! Celebrate with Jewish Book Council. https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt - Mehr anzeigen
