“The Dressmaker’s Daughter” by Linda Boroff (Santa Monica Press, 240 pages). It’s 1940, and Romanian-Jewish teenager Daniela, a brilliant student, is striving to become a doctor. But as the Nazis invade, she is captured, deported to Transnistria – part of modern Moldova – and forced to care for wounded Romanian soldiers while serving as co-wife of an Iron Guard chief. She longs for her lover, Mihail, who was hired by her mother to serve as her teacher before the war and has since joined the partisans. Boroff, who lives outside of Santa Cruz, told J. that her hectic young adult novel started as a screenplay. (She wrote the script for “Fashion Victim” from 2008 about the murder of designer Gianni Versace.) The character Daniela is loosely based on Boroff’s Romanian-born grandmother, Celia, who immigrated to the United States at the age of 13, thus avoiding the kind of suffering that Daniela endured. . In Daniela, Boroff said, she created one Celia could have been: “She never experienced the horrors of war in Romania, but I wondered what if she had become? Many of [Daniela] are me too.” While researching the manuscript (and now the novel), Boroff said she learned about the extreme anti-Semitism of Romanians at the time, which culminated in the death march of Transnistria and the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
“JFK & amp; the Muckers of Choate: A Real-to-Life Novel ”by Scott Badler (Bancroft Press, 324 pages). How was John F. Kennedy in high school? In this young adult novel, set in 1934-1935 and based on actual events, Kennedy appears as a “mucker,” the term used by the principal of his Connecticut boarding school to describe troublemakers. Kennedy leads a group of fellow students who are determined to fight injustice wherever they find it, including in the school’s quota system for Jewish students. At the same time, Kennedy has to contend with anti-Catholic sentiment, ill health and pressure to compete with his older brother, Joe. “Thousands of books have been written about JFK and the Kennedys – sometimes called America’s Royal Family,” Badler wrote in an author’s note at the beginning of the book. “But while a few of them deal with his early years, the vast majority focus on either his presidency or assassination, or only move on from the saga of PT-109 during World War II. But much of what happened to Choate informed the rest of his life. ” Badler drew on materials at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum by writing the novel, his first. He lived in Richmond and lived in the Boston area for many years, teaching humor writing at Harvard University and Emerson College.
“Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation and Non-Monogamy” by Rachel Krantz (Harmony, 352 pages). This is a work of “immersive journalism” by a polyamorous writer who took detailed notes on her romantic relationship with men and women between 2015 and 2019 when she lived in Brooklyn, New York. (Krantz and “Adam,” her primary partner during the period the book covers, are both Jews.) The memoir, which also includes interviews with psychologists and others involved in open relationships, is a kind of update of “Your Neighbor’s Wife,” Gay Taleses literature from 1981 on American sexuality. There is a lot of sex in “Open,” including BDSM, but Krantz also writes honestly about the emotional dangers of polyamory, including feelings of jealousy and gaslighting. “This book differs from many books on non-monogamy. knowing that it does not argue for or against or provides a ‘how-to’ guide, “Krantz told The Times of Israel.” of the time. But it is not an agenda by any means. It’s just telling a story. “A founding editor of the women’s magazine Bustle, Krantz grew up in Oakland and lives in Sacramento.
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“The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage” edited by Loolwa Khazzoom (self-published, 366 pages). An updated edition of this groundbreaking Mizrahi feminist anthology has arrived, almost 20 years after the release of the first edition. New material includes an interview with Tair Haim from the Yemeni-Israeli band A-WA, poetry by Khazzoom and a study guide. The audiobook offers musical and spoken word performances. Several of the previously published essays are by Bay Area authors: Rachel Wahba, Gina Bublil-Waldman, Julie Iny and Caroline Smadja. See the article : 5 Ways Title IX Transformed School Sports (and More). “I wish I could say that this book is no longer as revolutionary, groundbreaking or as necessary as it was when I started compiling it in 1992, but unfortunately that is not the case,” Khazzoom writes in the preface. “Although there have been changes – shifts in consciousness, language and even representation – Mizrahi and Sefardi women in general remain excluded, in theory and practice, from spaces for women, Jews, Middle Eastern, colored, LGBTQI people and even Mizrahim and Sefardim.” Khazzoom, an Iraqi-American educator who grew up in San Francisco and lives in Seattle, is also the founder of the alternative rock band Iraqis in Pajamas.
“How Architecture Tells: 9 Realities That Will Change the Way You See” by Robert Steinberg with Gerald Sindell (ORO Editions, 296 pages). »Architecture does not exist in isolation. It’s really like participating in an existing conversation. Architecture should be responsive to its context, purpose and time. “These are some of the observations found in this coffee table book by a third-generation architect living in Palo Alto. Steinberg divides his guiding principles or” realities “into nine chapters, each is dedicated to another project. (The book contains lots of beautiful photos of buildings.) Steinberg’s father, Goody, started the architectural firm Steinberg Hart in Silicon Valley and designed the campus for the Beth Am Congregation in Los Altos. Later, the younger Steinberg added it and also contributed for the design of the Beth Jacob Congregation in Redwood City and the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, Chapter 9, entitled “Architecture Is Innovation”, is dedicated to the Taube Choir Campus for Jewish Life and Moldaw Residences in Palo Alto, which Steinberg also designed “Sculpting space,” the author writes, “has the power to shape life.”
“Jewish Noir II: Tales of Crime and Other Dark Deeds” edited by Kenneth Wishnia and Chantelle Aimée Osman (PM Press, 372 pages). This collection, released on August 23, features stories by several Bay Area Jewish writers: Eileen Rendahl (“Brother’s Keeper”), Ellen Kirschman (“The Almost Sisters”), Zoe Quinton (“Crossover”) and Rita Lakin (” The Almost Sisters “). the stories cover a range of topics, including Jewish identity, assimilation, anti-Semitism, and Israel. Publishers Weekly called this volume a “superior follow-up” to a previous “Jewish Noir” collection published in 2015.
These books are available to order from Afikomen Judaica in Berkeley and online retailers. J. invites local authors to submit their books for possible inclusion in future columns to [email protected]. Books that were published within the last six months and are available to buy from major retailers or borrow from local libraries will be given priority for coverage.
