Jewish Fiction

JEWISH FICTION LIST
Jo Davies February, 2003
These works of fiction for adults are written for the most part by Jewish authors and may contain references to Jewish religion, culture and traditions.
F Bel Herzog by Saul Bellow
Critics describe the character Herzog as a joker, a charmer and an everyman for our time. The novel is feast of language, situations and characters.
F Ben Jacob the Baker by Noah BenShay
In this gentle fable, customers come to the baker for bread, thoughts of wisdom
and simple words of remembering.
F Cha The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Inspired by comic books, the adventures of this superhero contain good and evil,
battles and escapes, dreams and hopes and magic.
F Eve The Family Orchard: A Novel by Nomi Eve
Set in mid-nineteenth century Palestine, the story is the history of a Jewish family
through six generations. Legends are woven out of fact and out of fantasy.
F Fin A Scrap of Time and Other Stories by Ida Fink
Twenty-three haunting stories about ordinary people in Poland during the Holocaust. Tales of betrayal and regret, hope and resistance.
F Foe Everything is Illuminated: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer
A young Jewish American journeys to the Ukraine in hopes of finding the woman
who saved his grandfather from the Nazis.
F Gol The Alchemist’s Door by Lisa Goldstein
The author draws from the culture and folklore of Eastern Europe and Jewish tradition in a tale full of historical legend and reference to the occult.
F Gra When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
In 1946, a young London hairdresser embarks on a trip to Palestine in hopes of recovering her Jewish identity. Howver, she finds that in Palestine, in this extraordinary time, British people are the enemy.
F Gro Be My Knife by David Grossman
This highly distinguished Israeli author weaves a poetic but disturbing tale of unrequited love and compulsion, sorrow and desire.
F Ham Snow in August by Pete Hamill
Hamill describes the challenges and miracles of everyday life in the working-class neighborhoods of postwar Brooklyn, as seen through the eyes of a boy on the brink of manhood.
F Hav Like Never Before by Ehud Havazelet
A young boy in World War II must make a terrible choice: should he abandon his brother and save himself, or reveal his identity and face certain capture by the Nazis.
F Hof Big League Dreams by Allen Hoffman
The Krimsker Rebbe and many of his Polish immigrant flock find themselves in St. Louis on a Saturday, the Sabbath, in the summer of 1920, a time of the mobs, prohibition and fixed ball games.
F Hor In the Image: A Novel by Dara Horn
Horn’s first novel is about the Jewish immigrant experience, and it embraces themes of love, commitment and fulfillment in a religious and cultural context.
F Isl The Bacon Fancier by Alan Isler
Four stories tell the tale of Judaism’s survival as a culture within a hostile non-Jewish world. Amusing, complex, witty and wise.
F Kaf The Trial by Franz Kafka
A short novel of classical literary status. Albert Camus says of this book that it “states the problem of the absurd in its entirety.”
F Kah Never Nosh a Matzo Ball by Sharon Kahn
A temple congregation attempts to establish a healthy new image with matzo balls that are quite literally to die for. An endearing mixture of humor and crime.
F Kan Rabbi, Rabbi by Andrew Kane
This romantic novel of contemporary Jewish life is in the tradition of Marjorie Morningstar and The Chosen.
F Kel In the Company of Angels by N. M.Kelby
What is dreamed? What is real? What is imagined? The novel is about personal exploration, set against the backdrop of the Holocaust.
F Kem Monday the Rabbi Took Off by Harry Kemelman
A thrilling mystery in the Rabbi Small series, full of wit and logic and a hair-raising adventure in Israel, where the rabbi has gone for a much needed rest.
F Mal The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
In the 1960’s, this novel won the Pulizer Prize and the National Book Award. The acclaimed author knew how to move between the worlds of reality and fantasy.
F Mos Harem by Dora Levy Mossanen
The novel offers a seductive and intriguing view of 14th century Persia, as it brings to life the powerful tale of three generations of cunning, independent Jewish women.
F Obe Days of Awe by Achy Obejas
A Jewish Cuban discovers her roots in this thoughtful novel of family history and friendship. Rich depictions of place.
F Par The Secret Book of Grazia Dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park
The ‘secret book’ is an account of Grazia’s life in turbulent 16th century Florence, written so that her son may know his legacy.
F Pla Crescent City by Belva Plain
During the American Civil War, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant struggles with divided personal loyalties, forbidden love and civil strife.
F Pot The Chosen by Chaim Potok
A deeply moving tale of two boys, their fathers and their friendship in 1940’s Brooklyn, New York. This great author is a master at revealing profound, universal truths.
F Roe An Antidote for Avarice by Caroline Roe
A murder mystery, with vivid historical detail and a wealth of complex characters, which takes place in 14th century Spain.
F Ros The Golems of Gotham by Thane Rosenbaum
A young girl attempts to conjure a golem, a mythical creature of Jewishlegend, in order to rescue her father. A fast-paced comic ghost story that involves blocked emotions and evokes Holocaust memory.
F Rot The Human Stain by Philip Roth
A great Philip Roth novel-of-the-time --- a political parable that takes place in the summer of impeachment, 1998, but one that will speak to all generations.
F Sch The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart
Based upon the Jewish legend of thirty-six men who bear the burden of man’s suffering, the story traces the legacy of these righteous men through eight centuries. The last of the just men emerges just as Hilter’s evil begins its ascendence.
F Seb Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
The prose in this highly literate, historical novel has been likened to music, and the tone is generally in a minor key. How easily, and unwillingly, we move from life into death, and sometimes back again.
F Seg The Class by Erich Segal
Five fictional Harvard alums are traced through twenty-five tumultuous and glorious years, only to confront each other, and the reality of their own lives, in a dramatic class reunion.
F Sin Enemies: A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The great Yiddish writer was at the height of his fame when he wrote this searing and disconcerting depiction of the psychological condition of Holocaust survivors.
F Ste The Wedding Jester by Steve Stern
Journey into the author’s mystic Jewish otherworld in nine tales that weave together history, ancient traditions and Jewish legend.
F Sto The Far Euphrates by Aryeh Lev Stollman
Stollman’s remarkable first novel is set in early 1960s Canada, and tells an eloquent tale of family secrecy, of a small boy’s profound isolation, and of eventual spiritual growth and healing.
F Tay Address Unknown by Katherine Kressman Taylor
First published in 1938, this small, vivid novella is a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer and his partner who has returned to Germany. It was one of the first books to expose the horrors of Nazism. The ending has an O. Henry twist!
F Tra Jerusalem: The City of God by Ellen Gunderson Traylor
An epic saga of the people who have lived within the walls of this amazing and sacred place, and the influence of the One ‘who calls the city his own.’
F Uri Exodus by Leon Uris
An American nurse and an Israeli freedom fighter get caught up in the glorious and yet heartbreaking revival of the Jewish state, the re-birth of Israel after World War II.
F Wra The Right Hand of Sleep by John Wray
A deserter from the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I finally returns to the village of his birth in Austria, hoping to recover from years of fear and horror and loneliness. But the year is 1938 and darkness is rising, again, in Europe.
F Zel Louisa by Simone Zelitch
Holocaust survivors try to adapt to an uncertain future in the new nation of Israel, a country that wants to forget the past and its secrets.