Looking for your next book club pick? Want to support emerging Jewish women writers? Why not do both!?
These writers have broken through barriers and written stories that captivate readers, all while infusing their work with Judaism, whether it’s in the people, the history or culture. Magical realism? Family drama? Secrets? These novels have something for everyone. So pick one or pick them all — your book club friends will thank you!
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If you’ve walked into a bookstore this summer, you have no doubt seen Portia Elan’s debut novel on shelves. It is one of the season’s breakaway hits, earning a spot as a New Yorker “Best Book of the Year” and as a Good Morning America Book Club pick. It tells stories of three women across three timelines: 1983, 2078 and 2586. Given its fast-paced plot and the big questions it asks — especially about our environment and the duty we owe to future generations — it’s no wonder it’s garnered so much buzz.
Set in the Netherlands in the 1960s, this novel tells the story of Isabel, whose quiet life is turned on its head when her brother introduces his girlfriend, Eva, into their household. Tensions, lust and secrets abound in this emotional thriller that has earned an impressive number of accolades (it was even shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize). You won’t want to put it down.
If you prefer your literary fiction with a side of comedy, this one’s for you. A mother-daughter story set between communist Hungary, Cold War-era Washington D.C. and the characters’ present-day Los Angeles, “Porcupines” has been hailed as “if Gilmore Girls had sharper edges and came with a Los Angeles sunburn.” While Hungarian immigrant Sonia has been doing her best to give her daughter Mila an all-American life, the past she keeps buried calls out to Mila. This is Fabriczki’s debut novel, and there is a whole lot of buzz about this new Jewish writer!
Here’s another debut novel that will captivate readers looking for family drama. Winner of the 2024 National Jewish Book Award’s Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction, “Anatomy of Exile” follows an Israeli family rebuilding their lives in Brooklyn after the Six-Day War, which brought great tragedy to their family. In America, though, old conflicts cast a long shadow, especially when the matriarch, Tamar Abadi, learns that her daughter has fallen in love with a Palestinian man. The characters that Bukai creates are complex and their world is nuanced, sure to stick with readers long after they’ve finished it.
Zohara, this moving novel’s protagonist, has always struggled with her Yemeni-Israeli-Jewish heritage, especially the poor upbringing she had in various refugee camps. When her mother dies, she travels from her comfortable life in New York to Israel, where she must reckon with the secrets her late mother kept and the very real impacts these will have on her own life.
Another impressive debut novel set in Israel, our protagonist, Idit, is stuck in an unhappy marriage when, on a walk in her small seaside town, she stumbles upon a bit of magic and travels back to the year 1240, where she starts an affair with a Christian crusader. Intrigued? The dialogue is witty and the setting is rich; readers will feel for Idit as she moves between these two worlds
While this last one is technically not a novel, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s memoir is a page-turner nonetheless. Born in Korea to a Buddhist mother and a Jewish American expat father, her journey to become the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi in America is a fascinating one that she writes about in a thoughtful, heartfelt way.
