Book Reviews

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Perfect for baseball and history fans Carrie Jones Kar-Ben Publishing | Minneapolis, MN Reviewed by Sam Levin I had the opportunity to read a great book called, The Spy Who Played Baseball. It is about how Moe Berg played baseball and was a spy. Nobody expected Moe to...

Tragedy Impacts Generations Jenna Blum | The Lost Family: A Novel Harper Collins Publishing New York, New York 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...

This one’s for every grandparent Unconditional Love: A Guide for Navigating the Joys and Challenges of Being a Grandparent Today. Jane Isay Harper, March 6, 2018 Reviewed by Alene Jo Kaufman It’s hard to read a book when one’s head is continually nodding up and down,...

An unfortunate topic The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity Sally Kohn Workman Publishing, 2018 Wendy Juren Auerbach To be honest, the copy of The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity by Sally Kohn languished on my pile of...

Memoir meets financial guide This Is The Year I Put My Financial Life In Order John Schwartz Penguin Random House LLC, 2018 Money is often an overwhelming and stressful topic. While some people love discussing financial matters, others cringe at the thought of...

Can be read alone Sadie’s Snowy Tu B’Shevat Jamie Korngold Kar-Ben Publishing I like this book very much because although I could read it by myself, I read it with my mom. Like Sadie, I love Tu B’Shevat, and while I know that it’s winter here, in Israel for...

Thou Shalt Innovate: How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World. Avi Jorisch Gefen Publishing House LTD In the summer of 2014, along with the rest of the world, I was watching closely as Israel launched  Operation Protective Edge to protect her citizens from Hamas-led...

Gone To Dust, A Novel Matt Goldman Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC If the litmus test for a compelling murder mystery is not being able to put a book down, Matt Goldman’s first novel, Gone To Dust, is quite the success and already a New York Times Best Seller. Aided...

Peter Lovenheim explains, “It began wonderfully, as romances do, but later devolved into a turbulent on again, off again affair. She was looking for a commitment I couldn’t make and I was looking for emotional intimacy she couldn’t give.” Years of breakups and makeups. The relationship became polarized—he was an anxious partner demanding more intimacy and she was an avoidant partner who shut down and withdrew. His Anxious Attachment style and her Avoidant Attachment style led to the Anxious-Avoidant Trap.

Robert H. Gillette Charleston: History Press, 2015 252 pages Robert H. Gillette is a retired educator living in Lynchburg, Va., who researched this intriguing story and retraced it within its larger historical context through the experiences of Werner (Töpper) Angress...

Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism Peter Adams Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014, 230 pages ISBN: 978-0-472-07205-7 Peter Adams is a former journalist who teaches English at Old Dominion University. His study recounts the story of...

The Undoing Project Michael Lewis 362 pp. W.W Norton & Co, 2017 ISBN 978-03932544594 362 pages, $28.95 In the early 1940s, young Danny Kahneman was walking the streets of Paris after curfew. He had gone to school early so he could take off his sweater before his...

Judas Amos Oz Translated by Nicholas de Lange Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016 305 pages, $25 Amos Oz, Israel’s premier author, is the very embodiment of Eretz Yisrael Hayafa, that beautifully inspiring Israel—particularly in its early pioneering phase—a reborn nation...

Violins of Hope (Violins of the Holocaust-Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour) James A. Grymes Harper Perennial, 2014 319 page, $15.99 Author James A. Grymes is a noted professor of musicology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte who...