Litsy

pick

A boy takes his Bubbe Rosa around Brooklyn and Manhattan as they shop for ingredients for dinner. She struggles with seeing new things in the place of old and her memories flood their conversation. It‘s a short read about a Jewish woman in the city, and I love the glimpses of her when she is young and her interactions with an old baker she‘s known for years.

dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 2w

KadaGul @AvidReader25 Your Dog 🐕‍🦺 is saying Mom im right here what are you looking 👀 @ and whose picture 📸 are you taking #petslife 2w

AvidReader25 @KadaGul He‘s here for it! 2w

27 likes3 comments

IReadThereforeIBlog

How to Fight Anti-Semitism | Bari Weiss

so-so

Bari Weiss is a journalist, writer and editor. This thought-provoking polemic was written in the aftermath of the 2018 terrorist shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue where she had her bat mitzvah and her anger at that atrocity permeates it. Unfortunately the valid points she makes about anti-semitism on both the left and the right get lost as she bangs her anti-liberal drum and she ignores completely the role of her own free speech movement.

3 likes

BookDadGirlDad

Jesus the Jewish Theologian | Brad H. Young

pick

When one steps back and understands the Jewishness of Yeshua (Jesus) and his culture, the words He spoke take on a different level of meaning. We cannot separate Him from the Torah and Jewish 2nd temple Judaism. This book shows Him in that light and brings new insight on His teachings. New in the fact that it places them in proper historical and cultural context. An excellent and challenging read.

ManyWordsLater Tell me more 2mo

BookDadGirlDad @ManyWordsLater There has been a great separation of Jesus from the Hebraic roots of the faith. Modern Christianity disregards the cultural and religious context of 2nd Temple Judaism. This, what we have is a Hellenized faith that disregards the foundation Jesus taught 2mo

29 likes1 stack add2 comments

breadnroses

How I Stopped Being a Jew | Shlomo Sand

Last book of 2023, read in one sitting. Sand raises the pressing question: is there any non-racial basis for secular Jewish identity today? (His answer is no.) Fresh, provocative and necessary. Some parts I‘m still wrestling with, and I think ultimately Bertell Ollman‘s “Letter of Resignation from the Jewish People” resonated more w/ me bc of how Ollman squares the circle of Jewish identity w/ communist universalism.

2 likes

monalyisha

The Promise | Chaim Potok

@BarbaraJean I want to read The Promise from your list (and The Chosen, the book that precedes it)…but I‘m also hyper-conscious of the fact that I need to increase my awareness about our current political reality & the history that‘s gotten us here. It feels daunting…and it feels important.

A friend recommended some resources (which I‘ll link to in the comments). If anyone has additional (or contrary) suggestions or advice, please let me know.💞

monalyisha Overview: https://youtu.be/kI_spMxp6t8?si=eh_VjTndfIfxtwJ_ 4mo

monalyisha Documentary: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt16378034/ 4mo

monalyisha Book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77920745-a-day-in-the-life-of-abed-salama 4mo

See All 15 Comments

monalyisha Interview (with the author): https://open.spotify.com/episode/7fX4pPcSOHBG6eruqT0wJG?si=SP3a2cnlSiWQNsB8whLD-... 4mo

monalyisha #AuldLangSpine 4mo

Sapphire I love Chaim Potok. He is one of my all time favorite authors and I have read everything he wrote. He gives a portrayal of observant Judaism of his time (and issues of identity converging with modernity). I am not sure how much it is a history of the nation-state of Israel. 4mo

monalyisha @Sapphire I don‘t know that I expect(ed) it to be. It just kind of feels wrong for me to pay attention to the fiction and not to the world, you know? I‘m probably overthinking it. I tend to do that. 😉 But whatever leads me into pursuing more knowledge and awareness can‘t be bad, right? Maybe I‘ll just make these twin commitments adjacent to one another but not consider them inextricably linked, or make one a prerequisite of the other. 4mo

Sapphire @monalyisha I totally get that. Not unbiased, but check out Bill Maher on YouTube for his recent statement about the current war. While it‘s not about Israel per se, Mary Doris Russell‘s “Dreamers of the Day” is an amazing tale of how the modern Middle East was drawn by people who had little to no knowledge of the region and its people. The author was an anthropologist before becoming a writer and commits to research I highly recommend it. 4mo

monalyisha The book sounds great! Adding it now. 💓 (Will look into the statement, too.) 4mo

BarbaraJean I hear you on this. This topic is so charged and so complicated. I‘m going to check out the resources you posted—I haven‘t had the emotional bandwidth to engage with this more deeply, but I know I need to. Also, I echo @Sapphire re: Potok in general, and this book particularly—it examines Judaism much more closely, in a specific place and time (New York City post-WWII), rather than looking at broader historical context. But I very much ⤵️ (edited) 4mo

BarbaraJean Cont‘d) …understand the desire to broaden the focus (and the tendency to overthink!). I‘m definitely interested in your adjacent project. For what it‘s worth, I read the tagged book YEARS ago, but it gave me a much more complex perspective on modern Palestine/Israel than I had previously considered. Other recs: I recently added Yehuda Amichai‘s poetry to my TBR, and would also recommend Naomi Shihab Nye, a contemporary Palestinian American poet.

I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity

4mo

monalyisha @BarbaraJean OoOo. I may consider the Naomi Shihab Nye an official #AuldLangSpine recommendation. I‘ve loved every poem of hers I‘ve ever stumbled across (especially Valentine for Ernest Mann). 🖤🤍 4mo

monalyisha @BarbaraJean Also, should I read The Chosen first, do you think? Would my reading experience be enriched? Or should I just head right into The Promise? 4mo

BarbaraJean Oh, definitely put Naomi Shihab Nye in the mix! I love her so much. My favorite is Red Suitcase (which has Valentine for Ernest Mann as well as another favorite, Shoulders). More recent/related to current events is the tagged, which I'd also highly recommend! With The Chosen/The Promise, they both work well as standalones. The Chosen gives you the main characters' growing-up years, but I don't think The Promise suffers without that context.

The Tiny Journalist: Poems

4mo

BarbaraJean My caveat is that it's been over 10 years since I read The Chosen, so my own memory of it is a bit... faded. The ideas in The Promise were SO fascinating, though, that I wanted to go back and re-read them both--so take that for what it's worth! 4mo

47 likes15 comments

TheBookgeekFrau

A History Of God | Karen Armstrong

pick

Whoa - it's A Lot! The writing was engaging, but there was so much repetition that honestly I skimmed a whole lot. The repetition was due to the many scholars tweaking of theory through the ages, and not poor writing.

I learned a lot, had some beliefs reaffirmed, changed my mind completely on some others, and had some questions answered; though now I have different ones.

All in all avery worthy read!
@ChaoticMissAdventures
#NFNR

30 likes2 stack adds

TheBookgeekFrau

A History Of God | Karen Armstrong

"In the beginning, human beings created a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of heaven and earth."

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

17 likes

TheBookHippie

Einstein and the Rabbi: The Search for the Soul | Naomi Levy

pick

My weekend read. It was excellent ..

58 likes3 stack adds

TheBookgeekFrau

A History Of God | Karen Armstrong

After 24 years on the ol' #TBR shelf, it's time 📖

I'm either going to be sucked in or wake up dreading to read 🤷🏻‍♀️ Let's see how this goes

#NFNR #Nonfiction

ChaoticMissAdventures

ChaoticMissAdventures LoL that's a long time on a TBR! What convinced you to read it instead of just removing it? 5mo

BarbaraBB It is very good! Especially in these times. These three religions are do much alike it‘s bizarre they are responsible for so much violence and so many wars. 5mo

TheBookgeekFrau @BarbaraBB Exactly!! I've always wondered about wars waged in the name of God; like if this is what your God demands of you, is He worth worshipping? And yet the bottom line of each religion is about peace 🤯 5mo

TheBookgeekFrau @ChaoticMissAdventures Crazy, right?!!!! Every time I culled my shelves and came to this book, I just couldn't part with it. I knew I'd eventually read it bc I'm just fascinated by the way religion shapes the workings of the world. 5mo

ChaoticMissAdventures @TheBookgeekFrau I went through a lot of religions as a teen, and then did many religion classes as a student. Lots of education to stay an atheist. I haven't read this one though, I hope you enjoy it. @BarbaraBB is so right, this is the perfect time to dive in with the state of the world as it is. 5mo

31 likes3 stack adds5 comments

ravenlee

I and Thou | Martin Buber

#DeadPhilosophersSociety I actually found two different copies of this at the book bazaar, this one was $.75 and a trade copy was $1.25. I left them there, but it did feel like a message. Our last read left me feeling like this would be beyond me!

kspenmoll, TheBookHippie, GingerAntics

Bookwomble Nice find! I stopped reading this one after banging my head into the dense prose once too often, but really it was me being dense, I think🤕. I was enjoying it, just picked it up at the wrong time. I'll go back to it eventually 😌 7mo

JamieArc I‘m not a huge philosophy person but I think about this one a lot. 7mo

TheBookHippie Oooooooo 👀 7mo

GingerAntics It‘s crazy, I‘m reading a book right now that talked about this book. It might be sign! 7mo

32 likes4 comments

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