Books & Book Club News
Jewish in Hawaiʻi Book Club
The JIH Book Club reads Jewish fiction and non-fiction picks which are selected by the group. Members rotate as “wranglers” leading the group in lively and interesting discussion. The group is a fun mixture of couples & singles, young adults & seniors and everyone in between. Affiliated and unaffiliated, however you roll — all are welcome, kids too! They meet at 2:00pm on the LAST Sunday of every month at Ala Moana Park, adjacent the first parking lot all the way to the back, on the grass, under one of the big shade trees. Bring something to sit on, snacks (if you wish), see old friends and make some new ones!
The group leader is David Emert.
The June 2022 pick is The Garden of Emuna: A Practical Guide to Life by Rabbi Shalom Arush, Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody.
Who By Fire?
Leonard Cohen in the Sinai, by Matti Friedman
May 2, 2022
Book Review by Beth Dwoskin, Jewish Book Council
Leonard Cohen fans know that Judaism was a critical part of his identity. Experts know that secular Israelis revere his memory. These two facts come together in this riveting book by Matti Friedman. When the Yom Kippur War began in 1973, Cohen was one of so many diaspora Jews who went to Israel with the common and naive expectation that they would work the harvest in kibbutzim in place of mobilized soldiers. Living on the remote Greek island of Hydra, Cohen was thirty-nine, in an unhappy relationship and a stalled career. He hopped a boat to Israel without even a guitar and landed in the middle of the Tel Aviv music scene, where several of Israel’s top performers convinced him to ride along and entertain the soldiers who were fighting and dying in the Sinai.
This story has never been told before in full, but Friedman takes it on in a spare, incisive, informative style. He provides the background and military narrative of the war from the viewpoint of Israeli forces on the ground in the Sinai. Friedman captures the harrowing reality of fighter pilots dying by the dozen while Israeli civilians went about their complacent lives. Even more remarkable, Friedman gained access to the notebook that Leonard Cohen kept with him during his weeks in the Sinai, and it is excerpted here for the first time. He also acquired amateur photographs and reminiscences from soldiers and musicians who encountered Cohen at that pivotal period of Israel’s history. This book tells two stories together, economically, yet in depth — the story of the Yom Kippur War and its influence on Israeli musical culture, and the story of the relationship that developed between Leonard Cohen and the land of Israel.
Morningside Heights
April 2, 2022
From the Jewish Book Council
The title of Joshua Henkin’s new novel, Morningside Heights, refers to the Upper West Side neighborhood in Manhattan crowned by Columbia University, where the book is set and where the main character, Spence Robin, is an esteemed professor of English literature. He and his wife, Pru, met when she was his doctoral student; she subsequently dropped her studies and began working in Barnard College’s Office of Development.
Many pivotal scenes take place in beloved local haunts like the Hungarian Pastry Shop, the West End Bar, and Chock Full O’Nuts. But the title Morningside Heights may also serve as a bittersweet hint about the slow deterioration that Spence endures over the brief course of his life. Once the smooth, swinging star of his academic department (lover of not only Pru, but also another former student, Linda, with whom he has a son), while still in his fifties Spence is sinking into the evening of his life and the depths of mortal humiliation as he loses his mind to early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Still, though diapered and often incoherent, Spence continues to be the sun around which a fascinating constellation of characters revolve, and in whose light and warmth they thrive — or don’t. After marrying Spence, Pru decided not to pursue academia; her husband warned her to stay away from his turf. This secondary status is echoed by her job at Barnard, where she unhappily flatters donors.
Meanwhile, the free-spirited Linda has borne Spence a child, Arlo, but she seeks other lovers, raising her son here and abroad. Arlo’s rarely satisfied yearning for his father is the major motivator of his life. Pru and Spence’s own child, Sarah, declines the opportunity to attend Columbia for free as a faculty child, choosing to escape her father’s shadow by moving to the West Coast.
While the characters each move in their own orbit, Spence’s illness draws them all in. Running through the novel is a golden thread of Yiddishkeit. Despite his non-Jewish name (changed from the original Shulem), Spence is Jewish. His sister, Enid, who is institutionalized with a severe brain injury, loves to croon a Yiddish song from time to time at the institution; these melodies, and their language, atavistically soothe Arlo when he meets her.
Pru’s family is also Jewish; as a newlywed, she took the step of kashering the kitchen that she and Spence shared in their first marital home. This Jewish element, like the Morningside Heights setting, lends a haimishe feel to Henkin’s novel. While families may fracture, and neurons tangle, there is a sense of home base to the book, a gravitational pull that holds love at its center.
Calendar and Reading List 2022 –
Held Sundays on Zoom
March 2, 2022
| Date | Author | Book & Info |
| 1/30/22 | Elinor Lipman | The Inn at Lake Devine | Novel: It is funny and makes a great point about Jewish restricted entry to an inn. |
| 3/13/22 | Irving Abella and Harold Troper | None is too many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948 | History: Canada’s refusal to offer aid or sanctuary, to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. National Jewish Book Award Winner |
| 4/17/22 | David Grossman | Horse Walks Into a Bar | Novel: Israeli comedian reveals dark moments during his comedy act |
| 6/12/22 | S.Y. Agnon | The Bridal Canopy | Novel: Jewry of Eastern Europe and their traumatized history and decline in spirituality. |
| 7/24/22 | Laura Z. Dobson | Gentleman’s Agreement | Novel: classic reflection of USA anti-Semitism. From 30 essential works by Jewish authors |
| 8/28/22 | Lawrence Kushner | Kabbalah: A Love Story | Novel: Jewish mysticism and spiritual insight that uses rich metaphor and prose to immerse the reader in an experience |
| 10/9/22
|
Jonathan Kaufman | The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China | Nonfiction: Two Jewish families, both originally from Baghdad, stood astride Chinese business and politics for 175+ years. |
| 11/20/22 | Chaim Potok | Old Men at Midnight | Novella: Davita (of Davita’s Harp) ties 3 short stories together. |
| 12/25/22 | Edmund de Waal | Letters to Camondo | Novel: tragic family history told in a collection of imaginary letters addressed to Sephardic banking dynasty heir Moise de Camondo, the fin-de siècle art collector French Jew whose elegant Parisian home is now a museum. |
2021: Book Club Year in Review
News from Carolann Biederman
December 28, 2021
What we read in 2021: Here is a table of what the SOF Book Club read in 2021. If you’d like to help choose what we’ll be reading in 2022, contact Carolann Biederman about joining the book club.
| 1/31/21 | If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir | Ilana
Kurshan |
Non-fiction. Author’s connection to Daf Yomi, the commitment to read a page of Talmud a day and complete it in 7 years. |
| 3/7/21 | Bee Season | Myla
Goldberg |
Debut novel coming of age for a female spelling bee champion. |
| 5/30/21 | Beneath a Scarlet Sky | Mark
Sullivan |
Based on true experiences of Pino Lella, an unsung Italian WWII hero, who joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps and falls for a beautiful widow. |
| 7/11/21 | Davita’s Harp | Chaim
Potok |
His only novel with a female protagonist. |
| 8/22/21 | The Golem and The Jinni | Helen
Weckier |
History and fantasy set in circa 1899 NYC |
| 10/3/21 | White Houses | Amy
Bloom |
Eleanor Roosevelt & Lorena Hickok, her real-life aide. Imagines their life after their love affair |
| 11/14/21 | My Mother’s Son | David
Hirshberg |
Debut novel with emotional punch and a vivid portrait of 1950s Jewish American life in post-WWII Boston |
| 12/19/21 | Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? | Roz
Chast |
Memoir-New Yorker cartoonist, part graphic and part text. Looks at the last years of her nonagenarian parents. |
Book Club Schedule
| Sundays | Pages | Kindle? | Title | Author | Focus |
| 1/31/21
|
320
|
yes
|
If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir
|
Ilana Kurshan
|
Non-fiction. Author’s connection to Daf Yomi, the commitment to read a page of Talmud a day and complete it in 7 years.
|
| 3/7/21
|
275
|
yes
|
Bee Season
|
Myla Goldberg
|
Debut novel coming of age for a female spelling bee champion.
|
| 5/30/21
|
465
|
yes
|
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
|
Mark Sullivan
|
Based on true experiences of Pino Lella, an unsung Italian WWII hero, who joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps and falls for a beautiful widow.
|
| 7/11/21
|
371
|
yes
|
Davita’s Harp
|
Chaim Potok
|
His only novel with a female protagonist.
|
| 8/22/21
|
468
|
yes
|
The Golem and The Jinni | Helen Wecker
|
History and fantasy set in circa 1899 NYC
|
Book Club Anniversary
December 12, 2019
Sof Maʻarav Book Club
The Sof Ma’arav book club is celebrating its 14th anniversary. During that time, members have met several times a year to discuss important works by Jewish authors and about Jewish life. Listed below are the books enjoyed by book club members over the past 14 years.
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
An Interrupted Life, The Diaries 1941-1943 by Etty Hillesum
Three Daughters by Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
Night by Elie Wiesel
Paradise Park by Allegra Goodman
Rashi’s Daughters, Book 1 – Joheved by Maggie Anton
Patrimony by Philip Roth
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frank
The World to Come by Dara Horn
The Jew in the Lotus by Rodger Kamentz
As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
The Covenant by Naomi Ragen
The Orientalist by Tom Reiss
Betraying Spinoza by Rebecca Goldstein
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
Rashi’s Daughters, Book 2 – Mariam by Maggie Anton
Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
The Zookkeeper’s Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
Rembrandt’s Jews by Steven Nadler
Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: A Novel by Michael Chabon
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado
A Woman in Jerusalem by A.B. Yehoshua
Away by Amy Bloom
My Life by Golda Meir
A Pigeon and A Boy by Meir Shalev
My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander
In My Father’s Court by I.B. Singer
Love Song by Julius Lester
Song for the Butcher’s Daughter by Peter Manseau
All Other Nights by Dara Horn
The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
The Haunted Smile by Lawrence Epstein
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
To the End of the Land by David Grossman
Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs
by David Lehman
Raquela by Ruth Gruber
The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal
Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem
The Girl from Foreign by Sadia Shepard
The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal
The Free World by David Bezmozgis
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Sacred Trash by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole
Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling
Friendly Fire by A.B. Yehoshua
My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum
Cleaner by Meir Shalev
The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of
America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen
A Jewish Girl and A Not-so-Jewish Boy by Sandra Armstrong
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Rashi by Elie Wiesel
The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy
The Book of Job by Harold Kushner
Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths by Bruce Feiler
Russ and Daughters by Mark Russ Federman
God Knows by Joseph Heller
Jews and Words by Amos Oz & Fania Oz-Salzberger
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
Peony by Pearl S. Buck
A Tranquil Star by Primo Levi
When General Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan Sarna
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Scenes From Village Life by Amos Oz
Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein
My Promised Land by Ari Shavit
An Officer and A Spy by Robert Harris
Kvetch: One Bitch of a Life by Greta Beigel
Zealot-The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot by Trudi Alexy
Leonard Bernstein: An American Musician by Allen Shawn
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Dona Gracia of the House of Nasi by Cecil Roth
The Puttermesser Papers: A Novel by Cynthia Ozick
The Gershwins and Me by Michael Feinstein
Total Immersion by Allegra Goodman
An Improbable Friendship by Anthony David
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories by Bruno Schultz
The Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik
Day of Atonement by David Liss
All Who Go Do Not Return: A Memoir by Shulem Deen
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen
Fever at Dawn by Peter Gardos
The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi
Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary Shteyngart
Yiddish: A Nation of Words by Miriam Weinstein
Pumpkinflowers – A Solider’s Story by Matti Friedman
Moonglow by Michael Chabon
Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
The Last Minyan in Havana by Betty Heisler
Judas by Amos Oz
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson
Moses, A Human Life by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
My Mother’s Sabbath Days by Chaim Grade
