By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
The largest number of Righteous Gentiles (those who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II) listed at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, are Poles with 7,232 known rescuers. Unfortunately, after the war, Polish partisan groups searched …
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
I got a little carried away recently when asking for review copies of rom-coms. It’s just that these novels sounded interesting and different enough from each other that I wanted to read them all. One author always features characters who have health problems, som…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
I periodically say, “That’s it. No more Holocaust novels for at least a few months.” Then something happens – a book gets great reviews, an author I really like publishes a book or a PR person suggests something that sounds interesting – and I once again h…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Many academic books about the Bible focus on the history and evolution of the work. What is often ignored is the changing relationship between Jews and the biblical texts. That’s one reason why Frederick E. Greenspahn, the Gimelstone eminent scholar of Judaic stu…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
How the world has changed: I can’t imagine either “Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl” by Brianna R. Shrum and Sara Waxelman (Inkyard Press) or “Going Bicoastal” by Dahlia Adler (Wednesday Books) appearing on library bookshelves when I was in high school. In f…
