Lay Led Book Club
Come read with us! New Lay-Led Book Group
Meeting Monthly at CRC – Third Thursdays at noon.
Calling all readers in the CRC community—Join us in the CRC library on the third Thursday of the month at 12 pm to discuss books that are Jewish or Jewish-adjacent – author, theme or characters.
Note: Please purchase and read the books in advance of our meeting.
Upcoming Books:
September 17th
Remember To Eat
By Meryl Ain
Following a Jewish family from before World War II to the not-too-distant future, this collection of loosely linked short stories explores the experiences of Marjorie, a baby boomer; her mother, Alice; and the friends and family that make up their community over the decades. As they each pursue higher education and choose career paths, both mother and daughter encounter challenges as they make choices within a changing society—from in-law problems to illness to antisemitism and beyond.
October 15th
The Golem and the Jinni
By Helene Wecker
The Bestselling First Novel in the Acclaimed Historical Fantasy Trilogy
A marvelous and absorbing debut historical fantasy novel about a chance meeting between two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York.
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic. She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in.
Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free. An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world.
November 19th
Israel: What Went Wrong
By Omer Bartov
A leading Israeli American scholar of the Holocaust explores and explains his native country’s intensifying turn toward violence and exclusion.
The distinguished historian Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv, and served in the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become a leading scholar of the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country.
In Israel: What Went Wrong?, Bartov sketches the tragic transformation of Zionism, a movement that sought to emancipate European Jewry from oppression, into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism. How is it possible, he asks, that a state founded in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, an event that gave legitimacy to a national home for the Jews, stands credibly accused of perpetrating large-scale war crimes? How do we come to terms with the fact that Israel’s war of destruction is being conducted with the support, laced with denial and indifference, of so many of its Jewish citizens?
Tracing the roots of the violent events currently unfolding in Israel and the occupied territories, Bartov tracks his country’s moral tribulations and considers the origins of Zionism, the intertwining of Israel’s independence with Palestinian displacement, the politics of the Holocaust, controversies over the term “genocide,” and the uncertain future. The result is a searing and urgent critique that addresses today’s debates over Zionism and the future of Israel with rigor and depth.
Whether you’ve been a longtime Book Clubber or are joining us for the first time, all are welcome. Bring your lunch and/or a snack to share if you’d like.
Thank you to all who have joined and continue to engage with us for these discussions. It seems like now more that ever these types of gatherings are so crucial to filling our souls as well as expanding our minds and our community.
Questions? Contact bookclub@centralreform.org
UPCOMING DATES:
Sept. 17, Oct. 15, Nov. 19, Dec. 17
