- (508) 429-6268
- tbt@bethtorah.org
We have an active book discussion group at Temple Beth Torah. We read a variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction, either written by Jewish authors or with Jewish content. We enthusiastically welcome all new participants. Currently we meet around six times a year, on Monday evenings at 7 pm via Zoom.
Contact Mary Ann Oppenheimer or Seth Novick to join the mailing list for one or more of the book discussions.
TBT READS: BOOK SELECTIONS 2024-2025
August 5, 2024
The Matchmaker’s Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman
A heartwarming story of two extraordinary women from two different eras (a matchmaker and her divorce attorney granddaughter) who defy expectations to realize their unique gift of seeing soulmates in the most unexpected places.
October 7, 2024
The Little Liar by Mitch Albom
Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis never told a lie. When the Nazi’s invade his home in Salonika, Greece, a German officer offers him a chance to save his family – all he needs to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to “new homes.” Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy discovers too late he helped send the people he loved – and all the others – to their doom at Auschwitz. Nico never tells the truth again.
Nico’s brother, Sebastian, and their schoolmate Fanni, survive the death camps and spend years searching for Nico, who has become a pathological liar, and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives. As the decades pass, the consequences of what they said, did, and endured are revealed. A moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge and devotion.
December 2, 2024
The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi
Gabriela’s mother Luna is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gabriela senses there’s more to her mother than painted nails and lips.
Desperate to understand their relationship, Gabriela pieces together the stories of her family’s previous generations – from Great-Grandmother Mercada the renowned healer, to Grandma Rosa who cleaned houses for the English, to Luna who had the nicest legs in Jerusalem. But as she uncovers shocking secrets, forbidden romances, and the family curse that links the women together, Gabriela must face a past and present far more complex than she ever imagined.
Set against the Golden Age of Hollywood, the dark days of World War II, and the swinging ’70s, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem follows generations of unforgettable women as they forge their own paths through times of dramatic change. With great humor and heart, Sarit Yishai-Levi has given us a powerful story of love and forgiveness―and the unexpected and enchanting places we find each.
February 3, 2025
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community-heaven and earth-that sustain us.
April 7, 2025
The Postcard by Anne Berest
January 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques – all killed at Auschwitz.
Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, family members, friends, associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to discover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. What emerges is a moving saga that shatters long-held certainties about Anne’s family, her country, and herself.
June 9, 2025
The Girl from the Garden by Parnaz Foroutan
A suspenseful debut novel of desire, obsession, power, and vulnerability, in which a crisis of inheritance leads to the downfall of a wealthy family of Persian Jews in early twentieth century Iran.
For all his wealth and success, Asher Malacouti – the head of a prosperous Jewish family living in the Iranian town of Kermanshah – cannot have the one thing he desires above all: a son. His young wife, Rakhel, trapped in an oppressive marriage at a time when a woman’s worth is measured by her fertility, is made desperate by her failure to conceive, and grows jealous and vindictive.
Rakhel’s despair is compounded by the pregnancy of her sister-in-law, Khorsheed, and by her husband’s growing desire for Kokab, his cousin’s wife. Frustrated by his own wife’s inability to bear him an heir, Asher makes a fateful choice that will shatter the household and drive Rakhel to dark extremes to save herself and preserve her status within the family.
Witnessed through the memories of the family’s sole surviving daughter, Mahboubeh, now an elderly woman living in Los Angeles, The Girl from the Garden unfolds the complex, tragic history of the Malacouti family in a long-lost Iran of generations past. Haunting, suspenseful, and inspired by events in the author’s own family, it is an evocative and poignant exploration of sacrifice, betrayal, and the indelible legacy of the families that forge us.
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The Latecomer: A Novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive by Lucy
Adlington
Kantika: A Novel by Elizabeth Graver
Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby
Night Angels by Weina Dai Randel