By Rabbi Rachel Essernan
Deciding whether a novel qualifies as a thriller or a mystery isn’t always easy. A novel that features police officers or private detectives usually falls into the mystery, who-dun-it category. Other popular mysteries feature amateur detectives who manage to cleve…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Rudyard Kipling’s short story “The Man Who Would Be King” told the tale of two British adventurers in India who managed to become kings in a remote part of Afghanistan, although later events left one dead and the other impoverished and, perhaps, mad. Adam Rovn…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
When the Russian Empire completed its annexation of Poland in 1795, it added more than one million Jews to its population. This led to a government call for ways to limit the ever growing Jewish community and/or find ways to turn those who were seen as primitive int…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Rom-coms generally offer two basic plot variations: two people who immediately fall in love, but are kept apart because of circumstance, or two people who hate each other at first sight, but later find themselves passionately in love. To readers of the genre, this m…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Essays by I. B. Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote so many essays for the Yiddish press that many were published under pseudonyms. The third book of his essays to appear in English, “Isaac Bashevis Singer Writings on Yiddish and Yiddishkayt: A Spiritual Reapprais…
