Chanukah is approaching and I am interested in hearing from folks; what are your top 8 books for this Chanukah? Based on feedback, I will be posting a list of “8 Books for 8 Days (of Chanukah)”. So please share the books you suggest. They don’t have to be connected to Chanukah but…they ought to be great books with Jewish content. So, what have you been reading?What have you loved reading lately? I look forward to hearing from you! Please post your choices here on the Awesome Book Blog. Thanks
Hi Stu. I don’t have 8 books, but here are 3:
1)Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy
The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966
Marc B. Shapiro [Read back in 2000; The Seridei Eish may be my ultimate role model among gedolim]
2) Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet By: Rabbi Dr. Binyamin Lau [Just got this for my birthday-an interesting exploration of Yirmiyahu]
3) New Heavens and a New Earth The Jewish Reception of Copernican Thought
Jeremy Brown [By a member of my synagogue-rabbinic reception of heliocentrism]
Have a happy Chanukah!
KT, Ariel Segal
I would go with
Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood by Leah Vincent
The Soulf of Chanulkah – Shlomo Carlbach
out of the depths – rabi lau
Try “You are Not Like Other Mothers” by Angelika Schrobsdorff. It will take a lot longer than one day to read (unless you don’t take breaks to eat or say hello to your spouse and you are a speed reader). It could easily take all eight days if you choose to eat, sleep, and take care of your family. One woman born in Berlin at the turn of the century, coming of age at the end of World War I “Berlin full of Judaized vice,” her wild choices and her travels during WW II and escape from the Holocaust, told by her daughter, Ms. Schrobsdorff, who is now married to Claude Lanzemann (sp?) and living in Israel.
Our familly doesn’t have eight books, but we do always read Eric Kimmel’s Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins and his The Chanukah Guest every year. We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah at the campus Chabad last night and I read Hershel twice! The rabbi’s children loved Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrations.
When I was asked to write an article for Mishpacha Magazine’s Chanukah issue on the topic of a woman who was a “warrior” on behalf of Judaism, I decided to write about Francisca Nunez de Caravajal, a crypto-Jew who was burned at the stake in 1596, a few days before Chanukah, by the Mexican Inquisition. I was so touched by her story – and the story of her son Luis, who is the first Jewish author in the Americas – that for Chanukah I bought myself a copy of “The Martyr” by Martin A. Cohen. The story of the Caravajal family is not a happy one, but their determination to remain loyal to their Jewish faith is very inspiring.
Chanukah Sameach!