The Bookshelf: JWA’s 2018-2019 Book List
Find your local library to check out any of our picks!
Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices From the Women's Liberation Movement
by Joyce AntlerJoyce Antler’s history of the women’s liberation movement explores in depth, and through activists’ biographies, the impact of Jewish women on the movement and the influence of their Jewish identities on their feminism.
Fruit Geode
by Alicia Jo RabinsAlicia Jo Rabins’ second poetry collection, Fruit Geode, is an intimate account of becoming a mother in the early years of the millenium. Rabins investigates the passages of pregnancy, birth, and early infancy through a constellation of ancient and modern experience, and draws on her interwoven roles as educator, musician, and poet.
Regina Persisted: An Untold Story
by Sandy SassoIn this illustrated children’s book, Rabbi Sandy Sasso tells the inspiring story of Regina Jonas, the world’s first woman rabbi whose achievements were largely unknown until recently. In capturing Jonas’s determination to become a rabbi despite opposition to women in the profession, Sasso offers young readers a compelling portrait of a strong female role model.
Gateway to the Moon
by Mary MorrisMorris’s novel alternates between the past and the present as she tells the story of a Spanish Jew accompanying Columbus to the New World, and of his descendents who settle in the hills of New Mexico. Five hundred years later, this family history intersects with a Jewish family new to the area in a discovery of shared heritage.
Never a Native
by Alice ShalviThis memoir by pioneering Israeli feminist Alice Shalvi traces her life from Germany to England to Israel, and her role in the Israeli women’s movement as an influential activist and educator. Shalvi interweaves personal memory with national and political history for women’s experience of, and impact on, modern Israeli culture.
A River Could Be A Tree
by Angela HimselIn Himsel's memoir, she describes a religious journey that led her from a childhood spent in an evangelical sect of Christianity to an eventual conversion to Judaism.
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
by Rebecca TraisterFeminist writer Rebecca Traister explores women’s anger through historical moments—from the suffrage movement forward to the Trump era. She takes on how women’s anger is so often dismissed—but how it has made important social change.
Eternal Life
by Dara HornThe newest novel from award-winning author Dara Horn, Eternal Life tells the story of Rachel, a woman who cannot die. Following the character from the biblical era to the present, the novel humorously and poignantly examines what it means to live and love over time.
I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff
by Abbi JacobsonGo on a road trip with Abbi Jacobson, one half of the comedic duo on Broad City and the girlfriend we all wish we had! In this account of a cross-country trip, Jacobson’s trademark humor and BFF personality shine through her observations and (mis)adventures. She also shares her artistic talent in illustrations throughout the book.
The Best Place on Earth
by Ayelet TsabariTsabari’s award-winning collection of eleven short stories features a range of largely Mizrahi Jewish characters in Israel, Canada, and beyond, as they search for a sense of identity and belonging in the world.
The Waiting Room
by Leah KaminskyKaminsky’s darkly comic novel follows a young Australian doctor living in Israel, as she navigates career, marriage, motherhood, and family history. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, facing the threat of terrorism in present-day Israel, she must make peace with her past in order to find her place in the world.
America's Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today
by Pamela NadellA groundbreaking history of how Jewish women maintained their identity and influenced social activism as they wrote themselves into American history.
Disobedience
by Naomi AldermanFaith, tradition, and love collide in this acclaimed novel about Orthodox women finding love with each other, within a world that forbids it.
If All the Seas Were Ink
by Ilana KurshanIn this memoir, Kurshan recounts her daily study of Talmud over seven years, interweaving her own life changes and discoveries with the insight she gains as she delves into the timeless text.
The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth
by Ken KrimsteinNew Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein’s riveting graphic novel takes on an unlikely subject: Hannah Arendt, a refugee from Nazi Germany and a brilliant, complicated woman who became one of the 20th century’s most important philosophers.
Heartburn
by Nora EphronIf you read nothing else by Nora Ephron, pick up Heartburn, her hilarious, poignant (and semi-autobiographical) novel about a deteriorating marriage. In this 1983 feminist classic, Ephron applies her barbed wit to recount her protagonist’s journey from betrayal to growth.
Forest Dark
by Nicole KraussIn Krauss’s latest novel, characters with very different pasts, but united by their search for meaning and change, converge in a Tel Aviv hotel.
How to cite this page
Jewish Women's Archive. "The Bookshelf: JWA’s 2018-2019 Book List ." (Viewed on February 19, 2019) <https://jwa.org/programs/bookclub/bookshelf>.
