By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
“Jackpot Summer”
Elyssa Friedland specializes in stories about dysfunctional families. What is different about her approach is that readers find themselves liking her characters, even when they are acting badly, because, no matter how much they squabble, they t…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
There are different approaches to discussing rabbinic law and how those laws affect Jewish practice. An objective scholarly look at their development can be found in Elana Stein Hain’s “Circumventing the Law: Rabbinic Perspectives on Loopholes and Legal Integrit…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Did Jews own slaves in the antebellum American South? Did these same Jews support the Confederate cause? While it may be distressing to contemporary American Jews to learn that their co-religionists supported slavery and the Confederacy, Jews were found on both side…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
“Oh, the subtitle is a pun,” I thought after receiving a copy of “Sex: Jewish Positions” edited by Miriam Goldmann, Joanne Rosenthal and Titia Zoeter (Hirmer Publishers/University of Chicago Press). Then I realized that “Sex” was not a book of essays off…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
The reason I didn’t ask for a review copy of “From Sun to Sun” by Kenneth Wishnia (PM Press) was due to its dual nature: while part of the novel is a revised version of the biblical Book of Ruth, other chapters take place in contemporary New York City and feat…
