NONFICTION

296.71 CHO
Chotzinoff, Robin: Holy Unexpected: My New Life as a Jew
Raised a born-again agnostic, Robin Chotzinoff had no interest in religion - and practically no experience in it - until she turned forty. When she suddenly discovered a belief in God, she had no idea what to do next. In Holy Unexpected she describes her journey from a privileged New York childhood through years of unhappiness, drugs, and drift to reconstruct her Jewish heritage and forge a relationship with her faith.

296.481 GIT
Gitlitz, David: Pilgrimage and the Jews
Pilgrimages to shrines are most commonly associated with Christians and Moslems. As coauthors of the National Jewish Book Award-winning A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews, Gitlitz and Davidson (U. of Rhode Island) explore shrines important to Jews. They treat journeys to graves of holy men and women in Israel and elsewhere important to Sephardic and Hasidic Jews, shrines for recent political leaders, Holocaust sites, and "roots" pilgrimages. The book includes maps, photos, and a chronology surrounding the "shrine wars" between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem.

364.3 COH
Cohen, Rich: Tough Jews
Tracing a generation of Jewish gangsters from the candy stores of Brownsville to the clubhouses of the Lower East Side—and, occasionally, to suites at the Waldorf—Cohen creates a densely anecdotal and gruesomely funny history of muscle, moxie, and money.

833.912 REI
Reiss, Tom: The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and a Dangerous Life
Examines the life of Kurban Said, detailing his birth into a wealthy Jewish family, his flight from the Russian Revolution, his transformation into a Muslim prince, and his success as a best-selling author in Nazi Germany.

920.72089 DIN
Diner, Hasia R.: Her Works Praise Her: a History of Jewish Women in America
The lives and legacies of fifteen generations of mothers, earners and agitators, drawing on long-neglected public records, private diaries, memoirs and letters. Included are Emma Lazarus, Mrs. Wyatt Earp, Batty Friedan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

940.5318 BEE
Beer, Edith: The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust
The author, a Jewish law student when the war broke out, recounts how she survived the Holocaust as the wife of a Nazi party member in Munich.

940.5318 KAP
Kaplan, Vivian: Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey from War-Torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai
Recounts how the author and her family was marginalized and tormented for their Jewish heritage after the Nazi invasion of Austria, describing how they were forced to flee to a Shanghai ghetto where the living conditions tested their ability to survive. A winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award.

940.5318 MAR
Marton, Kati: The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
Traces the early twentieth century journey of nine prominent men from Budapest who fled fascism to seek sanctuary in America, where they made pivotal contributions to science, film, and photojournalism.

940.5318 OPD
Opdyke, Irene Gut: In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
Irene was 17 in 1939, when the Germans and Russians devoured her native Poland. Here she recounts her experiences as a young Polish girl who hid and saved Jews during the Holocaust. The Israeli Holocaust Commission named her one of the Righteous Among the nations.

940.54 CON
Conant, Jennet: The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
Describes the covert intelligence operations of allied forces during World War II as experienced by wounded RAF pilot Roald Dahl, a patriot who used his charm and wits to infiltrate the upper reaches of Georgetown society and influence U.S. policy in favor of England.

974.738 INT
Brown, Phil (ed.): In the Catskills: a Century of Jewish Experience in ‘The Mountains'
As the Catskills Institute's president, Brown (sociology and environmental studies, Brown U.) offers an anthology of 30 reminisces about aspects of this fading slice of American-Jewish life popularized in films and books. Includes photos of Catskills resorts (including one once owned by the author's parents) and memorabilia, an annotated bibliography, and referral to the Institute's Web site for further resources.

977.733 BLO
Bloom, Stephen G.: Postville: a Clash of Cultures in Heartland America
A portrait of cultural conflict in action visits a small Iowa community where Lubavitcher Jews opened a successful slaughterhouse and found themselves in conflict with gentile neighbors.

BIO KURZEM
Kurzem, Mark: The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood
Documents the author's father's childhood as a Nazi SS unit's mascot, describing how the five-year-old Jewish escapee from a Nazi death squad witnessed massacres by his unit, his efforts to hide his Nazi ties in subsequent years, and his attempt to reclaim his identity.

CRIME FICTION

Browning, Abigail (ed.): Murder is No Mitzvah
A collection of short mysteries is set against a background of varied Jewish occasions and includes Larry Beinhart's "Funny Story," Doug Allyn's "The Christmas Mitzvah," and James Yaffee's "Mom.".

Cantrell, Rebecca: Trace of Smoke
Hannah Vogel investigates a murder amid political intrigue and sex scandals in the top ranks of the rising Nazi party.

Chabon, Michael: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
In a world in which Alaska, rather than Israel, has become the homeland for the Jews following World War II, Detective Meyer Landsman and his half-Tlingit partner Berko investigate the death of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy.

Dietz, Denise: Beat Up a Cookie
Ellie Bernstein loves eating and watching M*A*S*H reruns, but when people who look like characters in the series start dying, she suspects a serial killer and realizes that, after her weight loss, she looks too much like Hot Lips.

Forman, Steven: Boca Knights
Retiring to Florida after a long career as a Boston police officer, Eddie Perlmutter encounters the dark side of his new home and is tempted to use his crime-fighting prowess, with unexpected and often humorous results.

Franklin, Ariana: Mistress of the Art of Death
Sent to medieval Cambridge in order to exonerate Jewish prisoners who have been accused of murdering four children, University of Salerno medical expert Adelia discovers that the killer may be a former crusader.

Gur, Batya: The Saturday Morning Murder
When Dr. Eva Neidorf is found dead on the morning she is to give a lecture to the Jerusalem Psychoanalytic Society, Chief Inspector Michael Ohayon investigates, revealing intimate details about his own life along the way.

Hellmann, Libby Fischer: An Eye for Murder
When her name and telephone number are found in the pocket of an elderly man who died in a small Chicago boarding house, single mother Ellie Foreman tries to find out what her connection is with the deceased, an investigation that leads deep into the heart of a mystery with roots more than fifty years in the past and to secrets hidden in the heart of Chicago's Jewish community.

Kahn, Michael: Bearing Witness
Attorney Rachel Gold takes on a case in which her witnesses keep disappearing as Professor Benny Goldberg and his law students and prosecutor Jonathan Wolf try to help Rachel uncover a decades-old construction scam.

Kaminsky, Stuart: Lieberman's Folly
When a prostitute informer asks AbeLieberman, a veteran Chicago police detective, and his partner, Bill Hanrahan, for protection, the case leads to a ten-year-old murder.

Kellerman, Faye: Sanctuary: a Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus Mystery
Peter Decker is a Los Angeles cop; Rina Lazarus is his Orthodox Jewish wife. When a Los Angeles diamond dealer and his wife mysteriously vanish without a trace, detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus travel to Israel in search of answers and uncover a web of deceit and international treachery in the 7th book of the series.

Krich, Rochelle: Blues in the Night
In her first Molly Blume novel, award-winning novelist Rochelle Krich tells a story in the tradition of the great L.A. mysteries of the past—and introduces an investigator who is pure gold. Twenty-something divorcee Molly Blume, with her deep faith, short skirts, and nose for the truth, is a true-crime writer who is dating an Orthodox rabbi.

Land, Jon: Walls of Jericho
When a serial killer stalking Jericho threatens peace talks taking place between the Palestinians and the Israelis, an Arab-American detective and an Israeli Shin Bet agent must set aside their differences and stop the killer before he singlehandedly destroys the peace talks.

Lester, Julius: The Autobiography of God
Working as a counselor at a small Vermont college, abbi Rebecca, who has come into possession of a Torah once owned by Holocaust victims, pursues suspicions about the identity of a campus murderer and spiritually explores the nature of a God who would allow evil to happen in the world.

Liss, David: A Conspiracy of Paper
An outsider in eighteenth-century London, Jewish pugilist and hired thug Benjamin Weaver prowls the city's mean streets in the service of England's gentry tracking down debtors and thieves.

Rozan, S.J.: Shanghai Moon
Estranged for months from fellow P.I. Smith, Chinese-American private investigator Chin is brought in by former mentor Joel Pilarsky to help with a case that involves tracking down a valuable brooch. In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II, when Shanghai was an open city providing safe haven for thousands of Jewish refugees. The jewelry, identifed as having belonged to one such refugee - Rosalie Gilder - was immediately stolen by a Chinese official who fled to New York City. Hired by a lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, Chin and Pilarsky are to find any and all leads to the missing jewels.

Waldman, Ayelet: Nursery Crimes
When the head of her two-year-old daughter's school is killed in a hit-and-run "accident," Juliet Applebaum, a public defender turned stay-at-home mom, finds herself investigating the murder of the preschool principal.

FICTION

Appelfeld, Aharon: Laish
Searching for a home after falling victim to pogroms, a caravan of Jews, including fifteen-year-old Laish, crosses pre-World War II Eastern Europe to reach the Holy Land and faces hardships as they try to get to the port from which their ship will finally sail.

Boyne, John: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

Calisher, Hortense: Sunday Jews
A family saga considers issues of national and religious identity and how they impact one Jewish American family, including Charles, who aspires to be a Supreme Court Justice, and Bert, who becomes a rabbi despite his ambivalence toward Jewish institutions.

Graff, Laurie: The Shiksa Syndrome
Upset when her boyfriend dumps her on Christmas, Jewish publicist Aimee Albert seeks companionship with a nice Jewish man and finds herself falling for Josh Hirsch, who mistakes her for a shiksa and who has a different attitude toward Judaism than she does.

Heller, Zoe: The Believers
After civil rights attorney Joel Litvinoff suffers a stroke, his contentious family struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt as they battle their own demons and each other, as every member is called upon to decide what, if anything, they still believe in.

Hershon, Joanna: The German Bride
Eva Frank is a young Jewish girl living in 1860s Berlin who has an illicit affair, and the ensuing consequences are devastating. Driven by guilt over the affair, Eva feels compelled to marry and soon finds herself wedded to Abraham, a man whose dream is to move to the American Southwest. Living and adjusting to married life in America brings with it a multitude of problems, most of which are made worse by Abraham being what we now think of as a compulsive gambler and womanizer.

Horn, Dara: All Other Nights
How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, it is a question his commanders have answered for him: on Passover in 1862 he is ordered to murder his own uncle, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After that night, will Jacob ever speak for himself? The answer comes when his commanders send him on another mission—this time not to murder a spy but to marry one.

Huston, Nancy: The Mark of the Angel
Tells the story of a German woman married to a flautist who begins a passionate affair with a Jewish instrument maker that lasts two decades and spans the most troubling years of the Cold War in Europe.

Iles, Greg: Black Cross
A physician from Georgia and a German Jew, in a risky maneuver, attempt to destroy a poison nerve gas laboratory in Hitler's Germany.

Littell, Jonathan: Kindly Ones
Hiding his past as a Nazi officer while living the life of an entrepreneur and family man in northern France, Dr. Max Aue remembers horrifying acts of violence he committed during World War II.

Mansbach, Adam: The End of the Jews
The saga of the Brodskys, a family of Jewish writers and artists, unfolds from shtetl to suburbia across the turbulent course of the twentieth century, as each member embarks on an individual--and obsessive--quest for love, inspiration, art, and a place in the world.

Mirvis, Tova: The Ladies Auxiliary
Follows the uneasy movement of Batsheva--a newly widowed convert to the Jewish faith--as she and her five-year-old daughter, Ayala, unwittingly stir up trouble in the Orthodox Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee.

Pogrebin, Letty Cottin: Three Daughters
Shoshanna struggles to overcome personal demons while working to repair family estrangements, while English professor Leah faces the pain of abandonment, and athlete Rachel watches her carefully constructed world fall apart.

Ragen, Naomi: The Saturday Wife
Beautiful, materialistic Delilah Levy, married to a young rabbi, finds her life beginning to unravel because of the temptations of the modern world and the incessant demands of her husband's congregation, her faith, and her life.

Rosenbaum, Thane: Second Hand Smoke
Overshadowed by stories of his mother's Holocaust experience, Miami government lawyer Duncan Katz loses his perspective when he improperly prosecutes a former concentration camp guard.

Singer, Katie: The Wholeness of a Broken Heart
Hanna Felber delves into four generations of her Jewish family's history to try to shed light on her formerly loving mother's abandonment of her as she reaches adulthood.

Weiner, Jennifer: Certain Girls
No longer famous, journalist Cannie Shapiro writes science fiction under a pen name while raising her teenage daughter, and considers her husband Peter's request to have Cannie's flamboyant sister provide surrogate services so that they can have a secondchild.

Young, Sara: My Enemy’s Cradle
Hiding out from the Nazis with her Dutch relatives, Cyrla, a half-Jewish girl, is confronted by a terrifying choice between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking her pregnant cousin Anneke's place in the Lebensborn, a maternity home for Aryangirls.

UPCOMING TITLES

Many of these titles are not yet released and/or received by the library.

Buergenthal, Thomas & Elie Wiesel: A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy

Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young arriving at Auschwitz at age 10. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. Pub Date: May 2009

den Hartog, Kristen & Tracy Kasaboski: The Occupied Garden
The powerful true story of a market gardener and his fiercely devout wife who were living a simple life in Holland when the Nazis invaded in 1940. During the subsequent occupation, Gerrit and Cor den Hartog struggled to keep their young family from starving and from being broken up in an era of intimidation, disappearances, and bombings -- until one devastating day when they found they were unable to protect their children from the war. Pub Date: May 2009

Radosh, Allis & Ronald Radosh: A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel

A dramatic, detailed account of the events leading up to the creation of a Jewish homeland and the true story behind President Harry S. Truman’s controversial decision to recognize of the State of Israel in 1948, drawn from Truman’s long-lost diary entries and other previously unused archival materials. Pub Date: May 2009

Reichel, Ruth: Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way

Reichl embarks on a clear-eyed, openhearted investigation of her mother’s life, piecing together the journey of a woman she comes to realize she never really knew. Looking to her mother’s letters and diaries, Reichl confronts the painful transition her
mother made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one and realizes the tremendous sacrifices she made to make sure her daughter’s life would not be as disappointing as her own.Pub Date: May 2009

Jerome, Fred: Einstein on Israel and Zionism
Pub Date: June 2009
Albert Einstein thought and wrote extensively not just on the most difficult problems in physics, but also in politics. For the first time, this book collects his essays, interviews, and letters on the Middle East, Zionism, and Arab-Jewish relations.

Burr, Chandler: You or Someone Like You
It was a regular Los Angeles evening at one of the industry’s favorite watering holes, when someone casually requested that Anne Rosenbaum, the English/American wife of Howard Rosenbaum, a big-deal studio executive, make a reading list. Anne is, after all, a PhD in literature, and is never without a book in her hands. Unexpectedly, Anne finds herself leading a high-level literary salon for Hollywood A-listers and then finds herself transformed into a major tastemaker and producer (reading about herself in the glossy pages of Vanity Fair). Swept up in an improbable moment of intellectual celebrity, she fails to notice troubling changes in her thirty-year-old marriage to Howard, as well as significant signals from her teenaged son Sam. (Jewish identity is one of the core themes of this novel.) Pub Date: June 2009

Gilbert-Lurie, Leslie: Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir
A decade-long collaboration between mother and daughter, BENDING TOWARD THE SUN reveals how deeply the Holocaust still lives in the hearts and minds of survivors, and even extends into the lives of their descendants. Rita and Leslie bring together the stories of three generations of women—mother, daughter, and granddaughter Mikaela—to understand the traumatic legacy that unites them all. This is a unique memoir with an incredible emotional and historical sweep, sure to touch anyone who has ever sought reassurance and hope following a traumatic experience. Pub Date Sept. 2009

Minkoff, David: Oy Vey: More!
Always remember the two rules of life:
RULE #1: Never forget how to laugh
RULE #2: Never forget Rule #1
From romance to rabbis, from housework to hearing, with Oy Vey: More! The Ultimate Book of Jewish Jokes Part Two, David Minkoff takes us on a hilarious, sideways look at Jewish life and culture. Pub Date: Sept. 2009

Wex, Michael: How to Be a Mentsh (and not a Shmuck): Secrets of the Good Life, from the Most Unpopular People on Earth
From the bestselling author of Born to Kvetch comes a wise and witty manual for pursuing happiness while still acting with integrity, honor, and compassion. Pub Date: Sept 2009

Prose, Francine: Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
With the understanding one great writer has for another, Francine Prose deftly parses the artistry, ambition, and enduring influence of the text millions have come to know as THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL. Pub Date: Sept. 2009

Kertes, Joseph: Gratitude
March 1944: War’s darkest period descends upon Hungary’s Jews. By the time it ends in January 1945, over half a million Jews will have been murdered. Gratitude tells the story of that period, through the eyes of the wealthy Beck family, whose lives and loves are saved and lost. At the center of it all is Paul Beck, a young lawyer whose chance meeting with a visiting Swede, Raoul Wallenberg, may alter the inevitability of the Jews’ fate. Pub Date: October 2009

JEWISH AUTHORS

Hannah Arendt
Isaac Asimov
Saul Bellow
Aimee Bender
Lawrence Block
Judy Blume
Geraldine Brooks
Hortense Calisher
Michael Chabon
Noam Chomsky
Harlan Coben
Barbara Delinsky
Anita Diamant
E. L. Doctorow
Stephen Dubner
Harlan Ellison
Howard Fast
Harvey Fierstein
Jonathan Safran Foer
Betty Friedan
Kinky Friedman
Alan Furst
Allen Ginsberg
Myla Goldberg
William Goldman
Allegra Goodman
Noah Gordon
Paul Gottfried
Joe Haldeman
Chelsea Handler
Daniel Handler
Ben Hecht

Joseph Heller
Mark Helprin
Rona Jaffe
Erica Jong
Rodger Kamenetz
Marshall Karp
Mollie Katzen
Bel Kaufman
Faye Kellerman
Jesse Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman
Jonathan Kozol
Judith Krantz
Nicole Krauss
Fran Lebowitz
Jonathan Lethem
Ira Levin
Laura Lippman
Norman Mailer
Bernard Malamud
Seth Margolis
Kati Marton
James McBride
Daniel Mendelsohn
Arthur Miller
Cynthia Ozick
Sara Paretsky
Jodi Picoult
Marge Piercy
Chaim Potok
Ayn Rand
Harold Robbins
David Rosenfelt

Philip Roth
Louis Sachar
J. D. Salinger
Michael Savage
Maurice Sendak
Irwin Shaw
Sidney Sheldon
Gary Shteyngart
Sheldon Siegel
Neil Simon
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Susan Sontag
Danielle Steele
Gertrude Stein
Gloria Steinem
Daniel Stern
Jon Stewart
Jacqueline Susann
Sydney Taylor
Studs Terkel
Scott Turow
Harry Turtledove
Leon Uris
Chris Van Allsburg
Judith Viorst
Ayelet Waldman
Irving Wallace
Wendy Wasserstein
Jennifer Weiner
Elie Wiesel
Naomi Wolf
Herman Wouk

Prepared by Stacy Alesi, May 2009, West Boca Branch Library