Hostage
Hostage by Eli Sharabi Harper Influence, 2025 Introduction In his memoir Hostage—the first published firsthand account of an Israeli taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas on October 7, 2023—Eli Sharabi aims “to summarize a segment of my life that spans from the day I was abducted on October 7, 2023, until my return […]
Things That Shimmer
Things That Shimmer by Deborah Lakritz Kar-Ben Publishing, 2024 In Things That Shimmer, author Deborah Lakritz paints a vivid portrait of adolescence during a pivotal moment in American and Israeli history. The book captures new beginnings. Set in the early 1970s, the story follows twelve-year-old Melanie Adler as she tries to navigate the confusing waters of […]
The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies
The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies by Alan Dershowitz Skyhorse Publishing, 2024 Introduction In his book, The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies: And How to Refute Them with Truth, Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard University, offers a defense of Israel in addressing a post-October 7 campus environment where “reasoned dialogue” […]
The Heroes of October 7th
The Heroes of October 7th: Heroic Stories for Children by Hadassa Ben Ari, illustrated by Tehila Bar-Hama Yedioth Books, 2024 How should we address the events of October 7th with children? This is the question that Hadassa Ben-Ari, an Israeli mother of seven, confronted in the wake of the October 7th attacks. The Israeli consensus was to spare […]
The Lilac Tree
The Lilac Tree by Ammiel Hirsch Wicked Son, 2023 Introduction In his book, The Lilac Tree: A Rabbi’s Reflections on Love, Courage, and History, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the spiritual leader of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, aims to “make sense of what I have seen and what I have […]
A Visit to Moscow
A Visit to Moscow Adapted by Anna Olswanger from a story by Rabbi Rafael Grossman, illustrated by Yevgenia Nayberg West Margin Press, 2022 Back in 1965, when Russia was still the Soviet Union, a small group of American rabbis visited the country. Alerted to reports of official antisemitism and the suppression of Jewish religious life behind […]
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden by Yossi Klein Halevi HarperCollins Publishers, 2019 Yossi Klein Halevi’s book, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for G[-]d with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, offers readers deeply personal reflections on the encounters of Halevi, an Israeli Jewish journalist, […]
Spies of No Country
Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel by Matti Friedman Algonquin Books, 2019 “Time spent with old spies,” author Matti Friedman writes in his new book, “is never time wasted.” Friedman, a Canadian-born Israeli and former Associated Press correspondent, has devoted much of his career to shedding light on the unexplored and misunderstood aspects […]
Zionism and Judaism
Zionism and Judaism by David Novak Cambridge University Press, 2016 Introduction “Why should anyone be a Zionist, a supporter of a Jewish state in the land of Israel? Why should there be a Jewish state in the land of Israel?” While Zionists have become increasingly adept at establishing as a political fact that a Jewish […]
The Kill Artist
The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva Signet, 2007 Summary The Kill Artist, the first book in the Gabriel Allon series authored by #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva, is a literary fictional thriller that tells the story of former Israeli intelligence officer Gabriel Allon and French-Jewish agent Sarah Halevy as they […]