By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Criminals or heroes? That’s the question I pondered while reading “Gangsters vs Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America” by Michael Benson (Citadel Press). The work proved challenging, but not because of the writing or subject matter. In f…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Translated Jewish stories
Nora Gold has earned just praise for the Jewish online journal, JewishFiction.net, that she edits. According to the journal’s website, it is “the only English-language journal, either in print or online, devoted exclusively to the pub…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
It should come as no surprise that I think books make great gifts. In my mind, the perfect Hanukkah gift for a Jewish tween/teen is a book featuring – drum role here – a Jewish tween/teen! I’m just saying that if you do eight nights of gifts, at least one nig…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Some mysteries grab you from their opening lines. One example is “The Last Songbird” by Daniel Weizmann (Melville House), a gritty, alcohol- and drug-soaked noir that manages to be completely engaging. Its main character, 37-year-old Add…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Is the flow of history inevitable? At various points in time, the development of Judaism could have taken several radically different paths. It can be difficult to grasp these changes because what were once extremely different approaches to religious practice and t…
