‘The Lost Shtetl’ and ‘The Orchard’: 2 new novels of Jewish culture shock

Books coverage is supported by a generous grant from The Milton and Sophie Meyer Fund. For those attuned to the Torah reading cycle, one of the striking aspects of the Genesis narratives is that the characters are often moving to foreign places. From Adam and Eve to Joseph, nobody stays where they started.

Gripping memoirs by writers who aren’t exactly famous – J.

Books coverage is supported by a generous grant from The Milton and Sophie Meyer Fund. We tend to gravitate toward the memoirs of public figures whose lives are already of significance to us. However, as in the case of two new memoirs, I often find the memoirs of people I’ve never heard of most compelling, …