By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
The desires of the human heart are difficult to define, whether their focus is religion, politics or love. Trying to fulfill these desires is not always easy, especially if someone or something must be sacrificed in order to make them a reality. Two recent novels p…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Some detective novels are filled with actions and dialogue. Descriptions are at a minimum and the focus of the detective’s thoughts is on “whodunnit.” Anyone looking for that type of mystery can skip the rest of this review because one of my notes on “One M…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
When looking at novels for review, I’m sometimes unable to tell if they feature Jewish characters. If I am really interested in a book, I’ve been known to go to great lengths – from making numerous web searches for the “title/author + Jewish,” to writing t…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Is it really possible to analyze a biblical character? The text itself offers limited information, which means that these analytical works often either focus on a specific aspect of the story or use additional, non-biblical material to supplement and expand what is …
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
When writing Jewish fiction, one important consideration is the general tone of the work. Of course, that decision may be partly based on when a particular story or novel was written. Take, for example, Siegfried Kapper’s “Tales of the Prague Ghetto” (Karolinu…
