Jewish News

Bound In The Bond Of Life (Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy) Edited by Beth Kissileff and Eric Lidji University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020 242 pages   The utterly shocking and deeply unsettling 83-minute attack on Shabbat morning, October 27, 2018, on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, resulting in the [...]

Rafael Medoff Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2019. 387 pages. Professor Rafael Medoff is an orthodox ordained rabbi and prolific author who is the founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies as well as the co-editor of its online Encyclopedia of American Response to the Holocaust. The Jews Should Keep Quiet [...]

The Serpent Papers Jeff Schnader The Permanent Press, March 2022 ISBN: 978-1-57962-648-8 302 pages, $29.95 I recently finished reading The Serpent Papers, a new novel about the Vietnam era by Jeff Schnader, a local retired physician and EVMS professor turned author. And I can’t stop thinking about it. College life in America during the peak of the [...]

X Troop— The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II Leah Garrett Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021 351 pages Ask most American Jews about Jewish warriors and they will promptly mention the Maccabees and contemporary Israeli soldiers. In X Troop—The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II, author and historian Leah Garrett, provides a long overdue [...]

Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power Yaakov Katz May 2019 St. Martin’s, 320 pages ISBN: 978-1-250-19127-4 Shadow Strike is a must read for followers of Israel’s military history, as well as for those that follow serious world events that may affect all of us in the coming years. At the heart [...]

Jewish summer camp is such a crucial part of the American Jewish experience that many Jewish adults, even in their older age, likely remember the names of many of the kids in their cabins from when they were 11 years old. One of those cabins more than 60 years ago contained a couple of interesting [...]

Outsmart Your Pain! The Essential Guide to Overcoming Pain and Transforming Your Life Lisa Barr, MD Illustrations by Tim Sovine Synergy Health Quest, LLC, 2018 ISBN 13: 978-1-7320011-0-7 In the opening pages of Outsmart Your Pain!, Lisa Barr, MD, says, “The science of pain is always changing.” Two pages later, she notes, “The purpose of [...]

Dear Zealots(Letters from a Divided Land) Amos Oz Translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018 140 pages The late (What a loss!) Amos Oz’s last literary gem, Dear Zealots (Letters from a Divided Land), relies on his previously English-published book, How to Cure a Fanatic, which was translated into some 20 [...]

Richmond author shares personal and universal stories in new book Erin Mahone Motivational Press, 2017 Reviewed by Amy Zelenka Did you ever feel like you were living in that famous idiom: the inmates are running the asylum? Well, Erin Mahone, in her new book, If You Could See Me: Life, Motherhood, and the Pursuit of [...]

Tragedy impacts generations Jenna Blum Harper Collins Publishing | New York, New York Reviewed by Lynn Woods In The Lost Family, author Jenna Blum explores how tragic grief and loss can impact a family for generations. Years have passed since Peter Rashkin, chef and restaurant owner of Masha’s in New York City, suffered torture and [...]