The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them

Alicia Jo Rabins on Composing a Life of Meaning

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Alicia Jo Rabins traces the “red hot glow” of the moments that shaped her, both spiritual and artistic, and how they led her to a life rooted in music, text, and ritual. She’ll tell us how a chavruta (study partnership) with an Orthodox student while at Barnard College paved the way for her to transform her academic study into song in Girls in Trouble. As she details the pendulum swings in her religious and spiritual practices, we discuss the ways in which small moments – watching orthodox women wait for the electric doors to open on Shabbat, watching Titanic – have helped her to build a life and tradition wholly her own.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, musician, composer, performer, and Torah teacher. When We’re Born We Forget Everything follows her journey as a modern Jewish woman to owning ancient teachings and finding her own meanings in them, refracted through feminist interpretations of the lives of Biblical women.

Alicia has published two award winning poetry collections, a collection of short personal essays called Even God Has Bad Parenting Days, and a children’s picture book called Hallelujah: The Story of Leonard Cohen. Alicia is the creator and performer of Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women. It has an accompanying curriculum and is now being made into an indie web series! She is also the creator of A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, which began as a one-woman chamber-rock opera and was adapted into an award-winning independent feature film.

Alicia Jo Rabins’ Five Books:

1. Pirkei Avot

2. Reading the Women of the Bible by Tikva Frymer-Kensky

3. Japanese Death Poems

4. Mother's Milk: Essays on Child-Rearing, the Household, and the Making of Jewish Culture by Deena Aranoff

5. When We’re Born We Forget Everything by Alicia Jo Rabins

Alicia’s Music Played in this Episode:

- Alicia Jo Rabins, “Blackberry Spring”, Sugar Shack

- Girls in Trouble, “Open the Ground”, Open the Ground

- Girls in Trouble, “River So Wide”, Open the Ground

Other Books Mentioned:

- Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Other Episodes on Jewish Feminism:

- Francine Klagsbrun on Embracing and Reshaping Tradition

- Ilana Kurshan on Books as Blueprints for Life

- Nicole Graev Lipson on the Attention, Intention, and Complexity of Mothers- Jennifer Wiener on “Women’s Fiction”

- Jessica Elisheva Emerson on Belief, Identity, and Women’s Desire

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Matti Friedman on the Stories that Built a People

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0000

In this conversation, Matti Friedman reflects on the power of foundation stories to shape how we understand ourselves and where we come from – from Noah’s Ark, to the origins of the Bible, to Hannah Senesh and the other parachutists who landed in Nazi Europe during World War II. We also talk about what happens when we look more closely at these myths and encounter the flawed, human figures behind them - and why that often deepens, rather than diminishes, our admiration for their courage. Along the way, we also discuss Matti’s particular perspective as a Western-born journalist living in Israel, Michel Houellebecq’s Submission, and the gift of reading poetry in uncertain times.

Matti’s latest book, Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe, has been awarded the Natan Notable Book award for Winter 2026 and was released last week.

In Out of the Sky, Matti Friedman unravels one of the strangest episodes of World War II: In 1944, a team of young women and men who had escaped the Holocaust made the inconceivable choice to parachute back into Nazi-occupied Europe under the cover of a British military operation.

Matti Friedman is the author of five works of nonfiction that have been translated into more than a dozen languages, each of which has appeared on numerous ‘best books of the year’ lists and have been awarded prizes and accolades including the Sami Rohr Prize, the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal, and the Canadian Jewish Book Award, and more. Matti is a former Associated Press correspondent, his work has appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. He currently writes from Israel for The Free Press.

Matti Friedman's Five Books:

1. The Bible - Parshat Noach, the Story of Noah

2. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman

3. Submission by Michel Houellebecq

4. Hebrew poetry by Yehuda Amichai and Lea Goldberg

5. Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe by Matti Friedman

Other Media Mentioned:

HHhH by Laurent Binet

Eli Eli, recorded by Ofra Haza and the Hatikva Neighbourhood Workshop Theatre

Stay tuned at the end of the episode for a reflection on Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock with designer and friend of the podcast Dov Abramson.

Other Episode You Might Enjoy:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl (Senior Rabbi at Central Synagogue, and author of Heart of a Stranger) Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Thank you to Rob Mank

Thank you to Felicia Herman and David Ben-Ur for their generous support.

Zeeva Bukai on the Fragments that Make Us Whole

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Zeeva Bukai discusses her two novels, Anatomy of Exile and The World Between, both published in the past year and woven with threads of her family history. She traces a legacy of dislocation: her grandmother’s reunion with her husband after years in a Siberian work camp, her father’s escape from Syria at age 13 with his younger brothers, and her own life between Israel and the U.S. Zeeva also reflects on her deep connection to Nicole Kraus’ Great House and the “architecture” of memory, and shares a striking moment teaching Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis to a class of orthodox high school students.

The Anatomy of Exile was chosen as the winner of the 2025 National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction. Zeeva’s latest book, The World Between was released just a few weeks ago.

Zeeva Bukai’s stories have appeared in Carve Magazine, The Master’s Review, Mcsweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and elsewhere. Her honors include a fellowship at the New York Center for Fiction, residencies at Hedgebrook Writers Colony, and Byrdcliff AIR program in Woodstock NY. She is the recipient of the The Master’s Review fall fiction prize, the Curt Johnson Prose Award, and the Lilith Fiction Award.

Zeeva Bukai’s Five Books:

1. The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig

2. Great House by Nicole Kraus

3. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

4. Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasiliyuk

5. Anatomy of Exile and The World Between by Zeeva Bukai

Other Episodes with Authors who Teach:

- Elizabeth Graver on Lost Worlds and new Doorways

- Jeremy Dauber on What the Horror Genre Reveals About America

- Toby Lloyd on Biblical Horror and being a Jewish Atheist

- Mary Morris on Hidden Histories and Jewish Identities

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

A Purim Episode with Rob Kutner On Where Comedy and Judaism Overlap [REBROADCAST]

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Rob Kutner is an Emmy, Peabody, Grammy, and TCA-winning writer for late-night TV including The Daily Show and TBS’ Conan. He is the author of the humor books including Apocalypse How (Running Press, 2008) and the kids’ comedy-horror graphic novel Snot Goblins and Other Tasteless Tales (First Second, 2023). He has written material for the Oscars, Emmys, and two White House Correspondents Dinners, and was named a “SuperJew” by Time Out New York. He is also the host of the new Mama’s Boys: a podcast on what it means to be a Jewish man today.

Rob Kutner’s irreverent book on Jewish history, The Jews: 5000 Years and Counting covers every major moment in Jewish history from Adam and Eve to Tuesday’s rerun of Seinfeld. This book will make you laugh, it might inadvertently make you learn, and it might just be a balm for our times that you didn’t know you needed.

In our conversation, Rob will tell us about how going to a Christian school reinforced his own Judaism, how he made sure that the diversity of stories were included in his Jewish history, and his story about ordering a lulav and etrog to the Daily Show office.

Rob Kutner’s Five Books:

1. The Big Book of Jewish Humor by Moshe Waldoks and William Novak

2. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg

3. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

4. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

5. The Jews by Rob Kutner

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support from Amelia Merrill

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Art by Elad Lifshitz of Dov Abramson Studio

Allegra Goodman on “This is Not About Us” (Or So We Tell Ourselves)

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Allegra Goodman tells us how This Is Not About Us grew like a family tree from her New Yorker short story “Apple Cake,” as she continued writing about the Rubinstein family for over a decade. We discuss how her perspective - and the world - has changed since she wrote The Family Markowitz in her 20s, and how Keats’ concept of negative capability has shaped her writing. We also hear about a book that she found very dull until a bad cold taught her patience.

Allegra Goodman is a writer of extraordinary range and precision. Across novels and stories, she’s written about faith, ambition, family, science, history, and the quiet negotiations of everyday life, always with clarity, wit, and deep compassion for her characters. Allegra’s many books include among them Sam, a Jenna’s Book Club pick, Paradise Park, Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist), and Isola (a Reese’s Book Club Pick.)

Her latest novel of interconnected short stories, This Is Not About Us, brings all of that together. It follows the Rubinstein family over many years, through moments that feel small until they suddenly don’t.

Allegra Goodman’s Five Books:

1. A book that is in conversation with your latest work:

The Family Markowitz

2. A Book You Changed Your Mind About:

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

3. A passage from a book that has stayed with you or has changed how you think about things:

A famous passage from one of John Keats' letters about Negative Capability

4. ⁠The Book You’re Reading Now:

Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller by Peter Conrad

5. The Author’s Latest Work:

This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman

Allegra’s First Appearance on The Five Books can be found here: Allegra Goodman on Making the Exotic Familiar, and Finding the Modern in Ancient Worlds

This episode was recorded live in front of an audience in a joint event for subscribers to Nu Reads, a project from Jewish Book Council that brings remarkable Jewish literature straight to your door. This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman is the Nu Reads pick for February. Learn more at https://www.nureads.org/

The Five Books is a partner organization of Jewish Book Council, a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers.

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

Support our work lifting up Jewish books and Jewish authors!Donate Here

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Live Event Production support by the incredible team at Nu Reads/ Jewish Book Council: Jamie Betesh Carter, Evie Saphire-Bernstein, Miri Pomerantz Dauber and Naomi Firestone-Teeter

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Jason Diamond on being a (Jewish-)American Author

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this conversation, Jason Diamond unpacks what it means to be an American, Jewish, or Jewish-American author. We also discuss family secrets, Jewish gangsters, the humor and alienation of Franz Kafka, and how Art Spiegelman’s Maus taught Jason to accept his family’s silences.

Jason’s debut novel, Kaplan’s Plot, follows Elijah Mendes, who returns to Chicago after his tech business collapses and discovers that his family owns a Jewish cemetery, where a man he’s never heard of — his great-uncle Solomon Kaplan — is buried. As Elijah begins to untangle his family’s past, the novel moves between his present-day relationship with his mother, Eve, who is dying of cancer, and the earlier story of his grandfather, Yitz Kaplan. That past narrative traces Yitz and his brother Sol from a pogrom in Odessa to their arrival in America alone, and follows the brothers’ complicated bond as Yitz rises to become a Jewish gangster in 1920s Chicago.

Jason Diamond has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, The Wall Street Journal, McSweeny's, NPR, and many other outlets. He is the author of The Sprawl, and the memoir, Searching For John Hughes. He is the co-author (with Nicolas Heller) of New York Nico's Guide to NYC.

Jason Diamond’s Five Books:

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman

2. Amerika by Franz Kafka

3. Be Here Now by Ram Dass

4. The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler and Effingers by Gabriele Tergit

5. Kaplan’s Plot by Jason Diamond

Stay tuned at the end of the episode for a bonus book selection by literary insider, Erika Dreifus. ErikaDreifus.com

Other Others who Chose Art Spiegelman’s Maus:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Sasha Vasilyuk on the Silences of the Soviet-Jewish Past

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Sasha reflects on her childhood in Russia and Ukraine, including the moment she discovered her family was Jewish at a Purim celebration. Cut off from much of the Soviet Jewish experience under communism, Sasha also shares what she is reading to bridge the gap and learn more about the hidden narratives of Soviet Jews. We discuss what Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing taught her about slavery’s impact on American history and life today, what it means to contribute a “missing puzzle piece” to WWII literature, and how witnessing the present Russia-Ukraine conflict emboldened her to tell her grandfather’s story.

Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended.

In 1941, Yefim is a young artillerist on the border between the Soviet Union and Germany, eager to defend his country and his large Jewish family against Hitler's forces. But surviving the war requires sacrifices Yefim never imagined-and even when the war ends, his fight isn't over. He must conceal his choices from the KGB and from his family.

Sasha Vasilyuk is a journalist and author of the debut novel Your Presence Is Mandatory (Bloomsbury, 2024), winner of the California Book Award and the Sami Rohr Prize. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, CNN, Harper’s Bazaar, Time, The Telegraph, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Sasha grew up between Ukraine and Russia before immigrating to the United States at the age of 13.

Sasha Vasilyuk’s Five Books:1. "An Airplane Went Flying" by Friedrich Gorenshteyn (in Russian)

2. Life and Fate by Vasiliy Grossman

3. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

4. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav

5. Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk

Other Episodes featuring Unique WWII Perspectives:

- Sharon Kurtzman on the Danger that Lingered Post Holocaust

- Mary Morris on Hidden Histories and Jewish Identities

- Georgia Hunter on Discovering her Family’s Jewish History and Kindness as Resistance

- Bonny Reichert on Food, Fear, and Finding Beauty

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Samantha Ellis on Becoming a Keeper of Her Ancestral Language

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, we’ll hear Samantha reflect on her journey to preserve her Iraqi-Jewish heritage even as the language is disappearing from use. She shares how the hand work of cooking traditional recipes became a tangible way to pass culture to her son, how Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother helped her process family histories, and how stories of imprisonment and fear in Iraq shaped her childhood imagination.

The daughter of Iraqi Jewish refugees, Samantha grew up surrounded by the noisy, vivid, hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. A language that’s now on the verge of extinction. The realization that she won’t be able to tell her son he’s "living in the days of the aubergines" or "chopping onions on my heart" or reminding him to "always carry salt" opens the floodgates. The questions keep coming. How can she pass on this heritage without passing on the trauma of displacement? Will her son ever love mango pickle?

Samantha Ellis is the author of How to be a Heroine and Take Courage. Her plays include How to Date a Feminist, Cling to me Like Ivy and Operation Magic Carpet. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, theTLS, the Spectator, Literary Review and more. She worked on the first two Paddington films. She lives in London, where Always Carry Salt was published under the title Chopping Onions on My Heart.

Samantha Ellis’s Five Books:

1. Megillat Esther, The Book of Esther

2. The Book Of Jewish Food By Claudia Roden

3. Lose Your Mother By Saidiya Hartman

4. Scaffolding By Lauren Elkin

5. Always Carry Salt by Samantha Ellis

Other Books Mentioned:

- Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

Other Episodes about Sephardic Heritage:

- Esther Levy Chehebar on Marriage, Sisterhood, and the Weight of Tradition

- Elizabeth Graver on Lost Worlds and New Doorways

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Judith Viorst on Happiness, Agency, and the Art of Aging

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, celebrated children’s book author, poet and memoirist Judith Viorst brings her irrepressible wit, humor, and insight to every age and stage of life. We talk about growing up, raising children, and living well - including the story of how her family gave up Christmas. She reflects on her lifelong love of “messy” characters, from Max in Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are to her own Lulu. Her wisdom and advice is especially meaningful as we take stock of the year and set our intentions for the year ahead.

In Making the Best of What’s Left: When We’re Too Old to Get the Chairs Reupholstered, Judith confesses, “I never ever send a text while driving, and not just because I don’t know how to text.” She discusses the afterlife (She doesn’t believe in it, but if it exists, she hopes her sister-in-law isn’t there). She complains to her dead husband (“I need you fixing our damn circuit breakers. I need you! Could you please stop being dead?”). And she explores the late-life meanings of wisdom and happiness and second chances and home. With a wit that defies age, Viorst navigates the terrain of loss.

Judith Viorst is the author of the beloved Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which has sold some four million copies; the Lulu books; the New York Times bestseller Necessary Losses; and four musicals. Judith has written books for each decade of life after twenty, including: It's Hard to Be Hip Over 30 & Other Tragedies of Married Life, Forever 50 & Other Negotiations, I'm Too Young to Be 70 & Other Delusions, and Nearing 90 And Other Comedies of Late Life. Now in her nineties, Judith writes about life’s “Final Fifth” in her latest book Making the Best of What’s Left.

Judith Viorst’s Five Books:

1. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud

2. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

3. The Odyssey by Homer (Robert Fagles translation)

4. I'll Be Right Here by Amy Bloom

5. Making the Most of What’s Left: When We’re Too Old to Get the Chairs Reupholstered by Judith Viorst

Other Books Mentioned:

- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

- Brundibar by Maurice Sendak

- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Other Episodes featuring Children’s Book and YA Authors:

- Gayle Forman on Judy Blume, Taylor Swift, and the Innate Goodness of Young People

- Dara Horn on Being the Lorax at Her Seder Table

- Rob Kutner on Writing for the Daily Show, Conan, and How Comedy and Judaism Overlap

- Jeremy Dauber on Jewish Literature, Pop Culture, and What the Horror genre Reveals About America

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg on Re-envisioning the Jewish Future

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0000

“No Jewish thinker has had a greater impact on the American Jewish Community in the last two decades than Irving (Yitz) Greenberg.” - Professor Steven T. Katz

Rabbi Greenberg has had a long and notable career in the service of the Jewish people. He received his smicha, ordination, in 1953 and has a masters and PhD in American History from Harvard. He has served in numerous rabbinic and academic positions. Together with Elie Wiesel, he founded CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. He also served as founding president of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation which created such programs as Birthright Israel and the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education. When Elie Wiesel served as chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, Rabbi Greenberg served as its (Executive) Director. He is a leading Jewish thinker, the author of five books, and has written extensively on post-Holocaust Jewish religious thought, Jewish-Christian relations, pluralism, and the ethics of Jewish power. He is married to the Orthodox Jewish feminist pioneer and writer, Blu Greenberg.

His latest book, The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism, gives people direct access to the big ideas of Judaism in a way that's grounded in tradition, yet fully accessible. It offers a vision of Jewish law and theology that affirms life, dignity, and human partnership with God.

In our conversation, we discuss Rabbi Greenberg’s unusual path to the rabbinate, how he sees the messianic intent of tikkun olam, or repairing the world, and how you can translate his idea of maximizing life into everyday actions.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg’s Five Books:

Other Episodes about Jewish Ethics & Spirituality:

- Rabbi Sharon Brous on Working to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

- Ilana Kurshan on Books as Blueprints for Life

- Sarah Hurwitz on Reclaiming Our Jewish Story

- Rabbi Angela Buchdahl on Finding Yourself in the Story

BONUS: Introducing Jewish Insights with Justin Pines

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0000

Today we’re sharing a special episode from the show Jewish Insights with Rabbi Justin Pines on JBS, the Jewish Broadcasting Service. Rabbi Justin and I sat down in the JBS studio for a deep dive conversation about Jewish storytelling, and of course his five book selections.

If truth is one of the foundational pillars of any stable society, how do we navigate a world which often feels post-truth?

They begin by exploring Tali’s own mission for The Five Books Podcast: the profound power of Jewish literature to foster empathy and a sense of shared purpose, especially during moments of crisis. Tali also shares her insights on the expanding landscape of Jewish storytelling in 2025, from the enduring resonance of Holocaust literature to the rise of stories exploring Sephardi, Mizrachi, and romantic Jewish experiences.

Then, in a special twist, Tali turns the tables and interviews Justin about the five books that have shaped his Jewish journey.

This conversation is a powerful celebration of reading, identity, and the spiritual journey that connects them both.

Justin's Five Books

1. The Catcher in the Rye 2. The Jewish Way: Living the Jewish Holidays

3. The Story of Joseph and His Brothers

4. Living Emunah: Achieving a Life of Serenity Through Faith

5. Ohr Yisrael and Other Writings

Jake Cohen on the Magic of Gathering Around the Table

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0000

Ahead of Thanksgiving, we’re doing something a little different: we’re talking with Jake Cohen about the foods that impacted his identity. Jake Cohen is the New York Times bestselling author of the cookbooks Jew-ish and I Could Nosh, and star of A&E’s Jake Makes It Easy. Jake’s latest cookbook, Dinner Party Animal, is a “self help cookbook” all about throwing a great dinner party and finding community. In this episode, we’ll hear about how Jake reconnected with Judaism in his 20s and how learning to make kubbeh opened a door to the wide world of Jewish food. Of course he’ll have plenty of recommendations for making Thanksgiving dinner special (and pain-free!)

Jake and his recipes have been featured on Rachael Ray, The Drew Barrymore Show, Good Morning America, the Food Network and in The New York Times, among many others. When he’s not posting challah-braiding videos and recipes, he’s eating around New York City.

Jake Cohen’s Five Foods & Restaurants:

1. Passover at his Aunt Susi’s (featuring her take on Joan Nathan’s Apricot Chicken)

2. Kubbeh at Azura in Jerusalem

3. The Chocolate Coulant, created by Dominique Ansel at Daniel

4. Hani’s bakery in the Lower East Side

5. Dinner Party Animal by Jake Cohen

Other Episodes Featuring conversations about Jewish Food:

- Bonny Reichert on Food, Fear, and Finding Beauty

- Esther Levy Chehebar on Marriage, Sisterhood, and the Weight of Tradition

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Sam Sussman on Bob Dylan and Being his Mother’s Son

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0000

Sam Sussman’s autobiographical novel Boy From North Country begins with the quest to determine whether Bob Dylan is in fact his father, but gives way to the deeper story of his love for his mother in her final days. In many ways it’s a testament to her having accomplished in its truest form what I think mothers all hope for, which is that their love travels forward and in some way inoculates their children against future pain.

In this episode, Sam reflects on his unconventional Jewish upbringing in upstate New York, where Judaism lived in literature and in the spiritual teachings passed down by his mother. He shares how My Name Is Asher Lev gave him a vision of a future for himself where art was central and how A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz helped him sustain a relationship with his mother after her death, redefining for him the bond between the living and the dead.

Sam Sussman is originally from the Hudson Valley, and he has lived in Jerusalem, Berlin, and England. He graduated with a B.A from Swarthmore and M.Phil from Oxford, and has taught writing and literature seminars around the world. His writing has been recognized by BAFTA and published in Harper’s Magazine. Boy from the North Country is his first novel. It debuted as a USA Today bestseller and was picked by our partners at the Jewish Book Council as the next Nu Reads selection, their new bi-monthly subscription series spotlighting remarkable Jewish literature.

Sam Sussman’s Five Books:

1. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

2. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

3. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

4. Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

5. Boy From the North Country by Sam Sussman

Other Books Mentioned:

- Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber

- Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre

Other Episodes featuring Autofiction & Memoir:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl on Finding Yourself in the Story

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Angela Buchdahl was born in Seoul, the daughter of a Korean Buddhist mother and Jewish American father. One of America’s most prominent rabbis, Rabbi Angela discusses her memoir Heart of a Stranger and the importance of finding yourself in a story. She shares how she discovered belonging within the Jewish narrative itself - seeing in Abraham and Sarah’s journey of boundary crossing a reflection of her own. In Jewish folktales, she recognized her own longing to reach deeper truths, and in Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, she saw her experience of feeling outside the Jewish community reflected back to her. Stories, she explains, are the quickest way to build empathy. In sharing her own, she invites us all to see how our sense of otherness can become a profound source of Jewish belonging.

Profoundly spiritual from a young age, by sixteen she felt the first stirrings to become a rabbi. Despite the naysayers and periods of self-doubt—Would a mixed-race woman ever be seen as authentically Jewish or chosen to lead a congregation?—she stayed the course, which took her first to Yale, then to rabbinical school, and finally to the pulpit of one of the largest, most influential congregations in the world.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s Five Books:

1. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

2. Elijah’s Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales selected and retold by Howard Schwartz

3. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

4. As A Jew by Sarah Hurwitz

5. Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging by Angela Buchdahl

Also Mentioned:

Other Episodes featuring Rabbis and Communal Leaders:

- Rabbi Sharon Brous on Finding Her Place in the Jewish Community

- Rabbi Benjamin Resnick on the Enduring Precariousness of Jewish Life

- Yehuda Kurtzer on Grappling with History and Memory

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Kitty Zeldis On Passing and the Relief of Being “Kitty”

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 07:00:00 -0000

At Vassar College, Kitty Zeldis confronted what she calls a “WASP tsunami,” sparking lifelong questions about what it means to be Jewish in a wider, often unwelcoming world. In our conversation, she reflects on how that tension shaped her new novel One of Them, and shares the moments and stories that shaped her Jewish identity: from a German-Jewish poet who challenged her assumptions about culture and belonging, to her parents’ formative years in Israel, to the haunting family memory of a murdered great-grandfather in Russia.

In One of Them, Anne Bishop seems like a typical Vassar sophomore—one of a popular group of privileged WASP friends. None of the girls in her circle has any idea that she’s Jewish, or that her real first name is Miriam. Pretending to be a Gentile has made life easier—as Anne, she no longer suffers the snubs, snide remarks, and daily restrictions Jews face. She enjoys her college life of teas, late-night conversations, and mixers. She turns a blind eye to the casual anti-Semitism that flourishes among her friends and classmates—after all, it's no longer directed at her.

But her secret life is threatened when she becomes fascinated by a girl not in her crowd. Delia Goldhush is sophisticated, stylish, brilliant, and unashamedly Jewish—and seems not to care that she’s an outcast among the other students. Knowing that her growing closeness with Delia would be social suicide if it were discovered, Anne keeps their friendship quiet. Delia seems to understand—until a cruelty on Anne’s part drives them apart and sends them scattering to other corners of the world, alone and together.

Kitty Zeldis is the pen name of Yona Zeldis McDonough, a Brooklyn based author of nine novels, numerous essays, articles and works of short fiction as well as forty books for children. She has worked for over twenty years as the Fiction editor for the Jewish feminist magazine Lilith.

Kitty Zeldis’s Five Books:

1. Dark Soliloquy by Gertrude Kolmar

2. Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth

3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

4. Empresses of Seventh Avenue by Nancy MacDonell

5. One of Them by Kitty Zeldis

Other Books Mentioned:

- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

- A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Other Episodes Featuring the Challenges of Young Adulthood

- Yael van der Wouden on Rage, Desire, and Magic

- Samantha Greene Woodruff on Blacklists and being a “Christmas Tree Jew’

- Toby Lloyd on Biblical Horror and being a Jewish Atheist

- Jennifer Weiner on Pushing Back Against De-Jewified Last Names

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Ilana Kurshan on Books as Blueprints for Life

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 07:00:00 -0000

As we approach Simchat Torah, when we roll the scroll back to the beginning and start reading again, Ilana Kurshan’s Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together reminds us of another sacred cycle: the books we read to our children again and again. Just like the Torah, those familiar stories shape us through their repetition, imprinting meaning with every return.

In this episode, Ilana Kurshan invites us into a life shaped by books – first as a child so immersed in All-of-a-Kind Family that its scenes felt like her own memories, and later as a mother discovering how reading aloud could bridge her love of literature with the demands of parenting. She shares how translating beloved works became a way to claim ownership over the stories she loved, and how her study of Jewish texts opened new ways of seeing herself, sometimes identifying more with the men of the Talmud than the women. Through tender, vivid moments, like reading a black-and-white board book to her newborn and connecting it to the creation of the world, Ilana reveals how books can shape not only our inner lives, but the worlds we help bring into being.

Children of the Book is Ilana Kurshan’s new memoir. Structured in five parts corresponding to the first five books of the Bible, she traces the profound parallels between the biblical narrative and the daily rhythms of parenthood.

Ilana Kurshan is a mother of five and lives in Jerusalem. She is the author of If All the Seas Were Ink, winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature. She has worked in literary publishing both in New York and in Jerusalem as a translator and foreign rights agent, and as the books editor of Lilith Magazine.

Ilana Kurshan’s Five Books:

1. All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

2. A Bride for One Night by Ruth Calderon

3. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

4. Three Days in Summer by Yossi Avni Levy (not yet out in English)

5. Children of the Book by Ilana Kurshan

Other Books Mentioned:

- From Sarah to Sydney: The Woman Behind All-of-a-Kind Family by June Cummins and Alexandra Dunietz

- ”Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote” in Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges

- Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson

- Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

- A Girl from Yamhill by Beverly Cleary

Other Episodes about All of a Kind Family:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Sarah Hurwitz on Reclaiming Our Jewish Story

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 07:00:00 -0000

As Rosh Hashanah approaches - a time of reflection, renewal, and returning to our deepest selves - I can’t think of a better moment to listen to (and read) Sarah Hurwitz. Best known as a White House speechwriter, Sarah has turned her extraordinary gift with words inward, asking essential questions about how we have constructed our Jewish identities in her new book, As A Jew. Together we explore everything from why Jewish law insists on the tiniest ethical details to why “I don’t know” can be a profound prayer, and how the health of the Jewish ‘body’ depends on honoring all its parts. It’s a conversation about seeing one another more clearly, exactly the kind of soul work the High Holidays call us to do.

At thirty-six, Sarah Hurwitz was a typical lapsed Jew. On a whim, she attended an introduction to Judaism class that sparked a journey of discovery that transformed her life.

Years later, as Hurwitz wrestled with what it means to be Jewish at a time of rising antisemitism, she wondered: Where had the Judaism she discovered as an adult been all her life? And why had her Jewish identity consisted of a series of caveats and apologies: I’m Jewish, but not that Jewish . . . I’m just a cultural Jew . . . a little different, but not in a way that would make anyone uncomfortable.

Seeking answers, she discovered how hateful myths about Jewish power, depravity, and conspiracy have worn a neural groove deep into the world’s psyche, shaping not just how others think about Jews, but how Jews think about themselves. She soon realized that the Jewish identity she’d thought was freely chosen was actually the result of thousands of years of antisemitism and two centuries of Jews erasing parts of themselves and their tradition in the hope of being accepted and safe.

In As a Jew, Hurwitz documents her quest to take back her Jewish identity, how she stripped away the layers of antisemitic lies that made her recoil from her own birthright and unearthed the treasures of Jewish tradition.

Sarah Hurwitz served as a White House speechwriter from 2009 to 2017, first as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. Her first book, Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life – in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There) was a finalist for two National Jewish Book Awards and for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Her second book, As A Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try To Erase Us, won the Natan Notable Book Award. Sarah has been profiled in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Guardian; interviewed on The Today Show, Morning Joe, and NPR; and named by The Forward as one of 50 Jews who impacted American life in 2016 and 2019.

Sarah is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was a 2017 Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard.

Sarah Hurwitz’s Five Books:

1. A Code of Jewish Ethics by Joseph Telushkin

2. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg

3. Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

4. The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes

5. As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us by Sarah Hurwitz

Other Books & Articles Mentioned:

- Jewish Literacy by Joseph Telushkin

- “College-Age Jews Are Heading South” by Rose Horowitch (The Atlantic)

- Judaism is About Love, by Shai Held

Other Episodes with Deep Cuts on Jewish Peoplehood:

- Yehuda Kurtzer on Grappling with History and Memory

- Rabbi Sharon Brous on Finding her Place in the Jewish Community

- Dara Horn on Being the Lorax at Her Seder Table

If you loved this interview with Sarah Hurwitz, you can hear more from her on a recent episode of Identity/Crisis with host Yehuda Kurtzer, who was a guest on our podcast last December – Yehuda and Sarah were shaped by one of the same books, check out both episodes to find out which one…

Toby Lloyd on Biblical Horror and being a Jewish Atheist

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Toby Lloyd discusses Fervor, his haunting debut novel inspired by a rereading of the Bible. Struck by the richness, ambiguity, and moments of horror in Genesis and Exodus, Toby explores how these ancient stories can speak to modern readers. We talk about his aim to write for a broad audience, the place of British Jews in the heart of English literature, and why Marcel Proust’s portrayal of Jewish identity feels as urgent today as it did a century ago.

In Fervor, Hannah and Eric Rosenthal are devout Jews living in North London with their three children and Eric’s father Yosef, a Holocaust survivor. As Hannah prepares to publish an account of Yosef's years in war-torn Europe—unearthing a terrible secret from his time in the camps—Elsie, her perfect daughter, starts to come undone. And then, in the wake of Yosef’s death, she disappears. When she returns, just as mysteriously as she left, she is altered in disturbing ways.

Toby Lloyd studied English at Oxford University before moving to America to pursue an MFA in creative writing at NYU. He has published short stories and essays in Carve Magazine and the Los Angeles Review of Books and was longlisted for the 2021 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. He lives in London.

Toby Lloyd’s Five Books:

1. The Jewish Joke by Devorah Baum

2. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

3. The Truce by Primo Levi

4. The Furrows by Namwali Serpell

5. Fervor by Toby Lloyd

Other Media Mentioned

- Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

- The Witch (film)

- The Exorcist (film)

- Collected Poems by Phillip Larkin

- My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard

- Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel

Other Five Books Episodes That Discuss Horror Fiction:

- Jeremy Dauber on Jewish Literature, Pop Culture, and What the Horror Genre Reveals About America

- Allison Epstein on Taking on One of Literature’s Most Antisemitic Characters

- Yael Van Der Wouden on Rage, Desire, and Magic

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Sharon Kurtzman on the Danger that Lingered Post Holocaust

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Sharon Kurtzman shares how an interview with her mother became a defining moment of connection. She was haunted by her mother’s description of just how much danger still lingered after surviving the Holocaust and that revelation became central to her writing of The Lost Baker of Vienna, set in the years after WWII between liberation and immigration.

She also shares how a childhood reading of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret planted the seed for her to define her own Jewish identity, and how writing her debut novel fulfilled a promise she made to her mother.

The Lost Baker of Vienna weaves together two timelines: postwar Vienna and present-day America. When Zoe Rosenzweig loses her beloved grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, she becomes determined to uncover the truth about her family’s past. Meanwhile, in 1946 Vienna, her grandmother Chana bakes through grief and danger, caught between love, hunger, and the lingering threat of violence.

Sharon Kurtzman worked in television marketing before pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies and has been nominated for the Pushcart prize.

Sharon Kurtzman’s Five Books:

1. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

2. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

4. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

5. The Lost Baker of Vienna by Sharon Kurtzman

Other Episodes about Books Inspired by the Author's Family Story:

- Georgia Hunter on Discovering her Family's Jewish History

- Elizabeth Graver on Lost Worlds and New Doorways

- Bonny Reichert on Feed, Fear, and Finding Beauty

- Rachel Cockerell on the Zionist Dream that Sailed to Galveston

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Rachel Cockerell on The Zionist Dream That Sailed to Galveston

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:00:00 -0000

On June 7, 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews sets sail not to Jerusalem or New York, as many on board have dreamed, but to Texas. The man who persuades the passengers to go is David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather. The journey marks the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when ten thousand Jews fled to Texas in the leadup to World War I.

In a highly inventive style, Cockerell captures history as it unfolds, weaving together letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and interviews into a vivid account. Melting Point follows Zangwill and the Jochelmann family through two world wars, to London, New York, and Jerusalem―as their lives intertwine with some of the most memorable figures of the twentieth century, and each chooses whether to cling to their history or melt into their new surroundings. It is a story that asks what it means to belong, and what can be salvaged from the past.

Rachel Cockerell was born and raised in London, the sixth of seven children. She did her BA at the Courtauld Institute and her MA at City University. Melting Point is her first nonfiction book. Her research has taken her to Texas, Ohio, New York, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.

In our conversation, we explore assimilation — both as a theoretical concept and as a deeply personal experience. We also discuss the power of reading history through primary sources, and the ways we often misunderstand our own significance.

Rachel Cockerell’s Five Books:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect ), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

BONUS: Introducing The Book of Life Podcast

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 07:00:00 -0000

In this bonus episode of The Book of Life Podcast: Jewish Kidlit (Mostly), host Heidi Rabinowitz talks to host of The Five Books, Tali Rosenblatt Cohen. Heidi and Tali trade recommendations for books new and old. If you’re keeping a list of great kids books with Jewish themes, this is a great episode for you!

RECOMMENDED TITLES

Book #1: Favorite Picture Books

The House on the Roof by David Adler (Tali)
The Rabbi and the 29 Witches by Marilyn Hirsh (Heidi)
Savta Simcha series by Yaffa Ganz (Tali)
The Passover Parrot by Evelyn Zusman (Tali)
Once Upon a Shabbos by Jacqueline Jules (Heidi)
The Hardest Word by Jacqueline Jules (Tali)

Book #2: Favorite Middle Grade

All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor (Tali)
To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloane and Meg Wolitzer (Heidi)
The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss (Heidi)
Not Nothing by Gayle Forman (Tali)
When We Flew Away by Alice Hoffman (Tali)
Max in the House of Spies/Max in the Land of Lies by Adam Gidwitz (Heidi)

Book #3: Favorite Young Adult

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb (Heidi)
Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero by E. Lockhart (Heidi)
Boys of the Beast by Monica Zepeda (Heidi)
Recipe for Disaster by Aimee Lucido (Heidi) - actually Middle Grade but mentioned at this point

Book #4: What books are you excited about right now?

More Than Enough: Inspired by Maimonides’s Golden Ladder of Giving by Richard Michelson (Heidi)
Mendel the Mess-Up by Terry LaBan(Heidi)
Night Owls by A.R. Vishny (Heidi)
Honey and Me by Meira Drazin (Tali)

Book #5: Adult Books

Esther Levy Chehebar on Marriage, Sisterhood, and the Weight of Tradition

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:00:00 -0000

The Cohen sisters are at a crossroads. And not just because the obedient middle sister, Fortune, has secretly started to question her engagement and impending wedding. Nina, the rebellious eldest sister, is single at 26 (and growing cobwebs by her community's standards) when she runs into an old friend who offers her a chance to choose a different path. Meanwhile, Lucy, the youngest, a senior in high school, has started sneaking around with a charming older bachelor.

As Fortune inches ever closer to the chuppah, the sisters find themselves in a tug of war between tradition and modernity, reckoning with what their tight-knit community wants—and with what they want for themselves.

Esther Chehebar is a contributing writer at Tablet magazine, where she covers Sephardic Jewish tradition and community. She holds an MFA from the New School and has had her work featured in Glamour and Man Repeller. Chehebar’s first book, I Share My Name, was an illustrated children’s book explaining the Sephardic tradition of naming children for their grandparents. This is her debut novel.

In our conversation, we spoke about the culture of hospitality in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community, the assumptions people make about such a close-knit group, and the inherent tension between tradition and individuality.

Esther Levy Chehebar’s Five Books:

1. The Diary of Anne Frank

2. Beware of God by Shalom Auslander

3. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

4. No Fault by Haley Mlotek

5. Sisters of Fortune by Esther Levy Chehebar

Other Books & Authors Mentioned:

- Corie Adjmi The Marriage Box

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect ), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Elizabeth Graver on Lost Worlds and New Doorways

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 07:00:00 -0000

A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika―“song” in Ladino―follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way―a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge―her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old.

Kantika was awarded a National Jewish Book Award, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Julia Ward Howe Award, and the Massachusetts Book Award.

Elizabeth Graver is the author of several novels, including The End of the Point, which was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award in Fiction, and her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and Best American Essays. She teaches at Boston College.

In our conversation, we’ll explore the power of witnessing erased histories, Sephardic migrations, and the way historical fiction speaks to the present moment.

Elizabeth Graver’s Five Books:

1. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley

2. One Hundred Saturdays by Michael Frank

3. Beloved by Toni Morrison

4. Isola by Allegra Goodman

5. Kantika by Elizabeth Graver

Other Books & Resources Mentioned:

- A recording of Elizabeth’s Grandmother

- The Postcard by Anne Berest

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Jessica Berger Gross on Cultural Judaism and Creative Resistance

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 07:00:00 -0000

When Hazel Blum’s father gets a tenured job at a prestigious college, she and her family relocate from Brooklyn to a middle-of-nowhere college town in Maine. With her mother, Claire, a clothing designer, and her father, Gus, an American Studies professor, Hazel and her eleven-year-old brother, Wolf, spend the summer at the town pool, where they acclimate to their new lives and connect with the town’s sprawling community. That is, until a dramatic fallout on the very first day of her senior year tips the fickle balance of idyllic Riverburg and impacts everyone in her family.

Jessica Berger Gross is the author of the memoir Estranged: Leaving Family and Finding Home. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Cut, Longreads and many other publications. She graduated from Vassar College and has a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Originally from New York, she lives in Maine with her husband and teenage son. Hazel Says No is her first novel.

In our conversation, we’ll explore finding creativity after trauma, the joy of being “culturally” jewish, and how a high school production of Brighton Beach Memoirs changed the course of her life. We also talk about the power of saying no – not just as a personal boundary, but as an act of resistance, deeply rooted in Jewish tradition.

Jessica Berger Gross’ Five Books:

1. Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon

2. Howard Stern Comes Again by Howard Stern

3. The Postcard by Anne Berest

4. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

5. Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross

Other Books Mentioned:

- Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene

- Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume

- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank- Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon

- She Said by Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey

- Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

- Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Mary Morris on Hidden Histories and Jewish Identities

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant.

Blending elements of true crime with settings that evoke Elena Ferrante, Laura follows her mother’s trajectory as she ventures north to Naples, Turin and finally home. Along the way, she confronts the dark truth of her mother’s story and at last makes sense of her own.

Mary Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels The Jazz Palace, and Gateway to the Moon, and of nonfiction, including All the Way to the Tigers and the travel memoir classic Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Award for fiction. Morris lives in Brooklyn, New York.

In our conversation, we’ll explore the roots of the name, Mary, and how it has shaped her Jewish experience, what draws Morris to uncover buried histories in her work, and her unexpected and painful association with To Kill A Mockingbird.

Mary Morris’ Five Books:

1. The Last of the Just by Andre Schwartz-Bart

2. The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4. The Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant

5. The Red House by Mary Morris

Other Books Mentioned:

- The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller

- Poems by Constantine P. Cavafy

- Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect ), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Announcement: Now an Always-On, Every Other Week Show, and a Newsletter!

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Hi everyone! If you’re new here, welcome! At The Five Books, we’re all about connecting through stories. What role do books play in shaping who we are? Which beloved books do you share with your favorite author? What’s the next great read that might shift your worldview? Stick around and we’ll have your summer reading pile stocked in no time.

In case you missed it, we’re moving to an every-other-week publishing schedule! That means no more long breaks between seasons – you’ll now be able to discover great Jewish authors and the books they love, all year long. We’ll be back next Tuesday and every other Tuesday after that.

If you’d like to get reminders when new episodes drop plus a full list of the books discussed - with links - delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter! You’ll find the link in the show notes of this episode or on our website: fivebookspod.org

Our newsletter was inspired by listener feedback! So if YOU have a suggestion, or an author you’d love to hear from, email us anytime at team@fivebookspod.org. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Thank you so much for listening, reading, and supporting Jewish authors. Whether you’re here for literary insight or cultural connection, The Five Books is a space for book lovers and curious minds to explore what it means to live, write, and read as a Jewish American today.

See you next week!

Rabbi Sharon Brous on Finding Her Place in the Jewish Community and Working to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

Tue, 27 May 2025 07:00:00 -0000

In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society?

Sharon Brous—a leading American rabbi—makes the case that the spiritual work of our time, as instinctual as it is counter-cultural, is to find our way to one other in celebration, in sorrow, and in solidarity. To show up for each other in moments of joy and pain, vulnerability and possibility, to invest in relationships of shared purpose and build communities of care.

Sharon Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a trail-blazing Jewish community based in Los Angeles. A leading voice at the intersection of faith and justice in America, she has been named #1 Most Influential Rabbi in the U.S. by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. She blessed both President Obama and President Biden at their National Inaugural Prayer Services, and her TED Talk “Reclaiming Religion” has been viewed 1.5 million times. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. She lives with her husband, David Light, and their children in California.

In our conversation, Rabbi Brous shares what it took for her to carve out a place for herself in a community that didn’t always feel welcoming. We’ll also discuss the power of foundational stories, the idea that religion begins with asking the right questions, and how to stay in conversation even when it’s difficult.

Rabbi Sharon Brous’ Five Books:

1. Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

2. The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel and The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel

3. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

4. The Postcard by Ann Berest

5. The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World by Sharon Brous

Other Books Mentioned:

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays by Rabbi Irving Greenberg

The Book And The Sword: A Life Of Learning In The Shadow Of Destruction by David Weiss Halivni

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Jeremy Dauber on Jewish Literature, Pop Culture, and What The Horror Genre Reveals About America

Tue, 20 May 2025 07:00:00 -0000

“Show me what scares you, and I’ll show you your soul.”

In American Scary, noted cultural historian Jeremy Dauber draws a captivating through line that ties historical influences ranging from the Salem witch trials and enslaved-person narratives directly to the body of work we associate with horror today: from the taut, terrifying stories of Edgar Allan Poe to the grisly, lingering films of Jordan Peele.

Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American Studies at Columbia University, where he has also served as director of its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. Jeremy grew up in a modern Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey; went to Harvard and then Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he wrote about Hebrew and Yiddish literature – and while there, wrote the libretto for an opera that played in Boston and a movie that screened at the Cannes market (you can still find it bouncing around the lower cable channels late at night); came back to America and took a job at Columbia, where he now teaches about, among other things, Dostoevsky, Mel Brooks, graphic novels, and Sholem Aleichem.

To honor Jewish American Heritage Month, we tweaked our Book 3 section and asked Dauber to tell us about three books that shaped the Jewish American Story. In our conversation, we’ll also discuss how to get started reading Yiddish literature in translation, why American Jews may channel their fears more into comedy than horror, and how writing for mainstream American culture is also a Jewish act.

Jeremy Dauber’s Five Books:

1. A Treasury of Jewish Folklore by Nathan Ausubel⁠

2. ⁠The Book of Esther⁠

3. Three Books That Tell the Jewish American Story:

- ⁠Bread Givers by Anzia Yesierska⁠

⁠- Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin⁠

⁠- MAUS by Art Spiegelman⁠

4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King⁠

5. ⁠American Scary by Jeremy Dauber⁠

Other Books & Resources Mentioned:

- Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem ⁠

- ⁠Miriam Karpilove, Diary of a Lonely Girl⁠

- ⁠The I. L. Peretz Reader⁠

- Sefaria.org⁠

- ⁠It by Stephen King⁠

- ⁠The Cafeteria by Isaac Bashevis Singer⁠

Jeremy Dauber’s Other Titles:

Cultural Criticism:

- ⁠American Comics: A History⁠

- ⁠Jewish Comedy: A Serious History⁠

- ⁠Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew⁠

Yiddish Literature:

- The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye ⁠

- In the Demon's Bedroom: Yiddish Literature and the Early Modern⁠

- ⁠Antonio's Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature⁠

- ⁠Landmark Yiddish Plays: A Critical Anthology⁠

Young Adult:

- Press 1 for Invasion⁠ (PREORDER)

- Mayhem and Madness: Chronicles of a Teenaged Supervillain⁠

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

For transcripts etc find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Jill Santopolo on Being a “Pizza Bagel”, and Fiction as a Way to Make History More Human

Tue, 13 May 2025 07:00:00 -0000

The long-awaited follow-up to the Reese’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestselling global phenomenon The Light We Lost: a thrilling love story about the roles fate and choice play in shaping a life.

It’s been nearly ten years since Gabe’s been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her. Lucy’s journey to uncover Gabe’s secret leads her to Dr. Dax Amstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with an NGO. His broad shoulders and sad, intense eyes draw Lucy in. His touch reaches her in a forgotten place—one that no one has neared since Gabe.

Jill Santopolo is the internationally best-selling author of Stars in an Italian Sky, Everything After, More Than Words, and The Light We Lost, which was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and has been optioned for film. Her books have been translated into more than 35 languages and have been named to the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Apple, and Indie Bound bestseller lists. She is also the publisher of Philomel, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, where she edits many critically-acclaimed, award-winning, and best-selling books. She lives in Washington, DC and New York with her husband and daughter.

In our conversation, we’ll discuss how experiencing 9/11 as a college student at Columbia encouraged her to follow her passions, the lifelong gift of introducing children to literature, and how she reconnected with Judaism after her daughter was born.

Jill Santopolo’s Five Books:

Other Resources Mentioned:

PJ Library

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Allison Epstein on Taking on One of Literature’s Most Notoriously Antisemitic Characters

Tue, 06 May 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob’s whole world is his open-minded mother, Leah. But Jacob’s prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream.

Fagin the Thief is a thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin. Colorfully written and wickedly funny, Allison Epstein breathes fresh life into the teeming streets of Dickensian London–reclaiming one of Victorian literature’s most notorious Jewish caricatures.

In our conversation, we’ll discuss growing up in a mixed-faith household, finding truth in horror fiction, and writing more diverse historical fiction. We also delve into the incredible coda to Dickens’ antisemitic depiction and how he attempted to account for his caricature of a Jew.

Allison Epstein’s Five Books:

1. The Carp in the Bathtub, by Barbara Cohen

2. The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker

3. Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado

4. Hungerstone, by Kat Dunn

5. Fagin the Thief, by Allison Epstein

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Nicole Graev Lipson on the Attention, Intention, and Complexity of Mothers

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters. Whether she’s testing the fragile borders of fidelity, embracing the taboo power of female friendship, escaping her family for the solitude of the mountains, grappling with what to do with her frozen embryos, or letting go of the children she imagined for the ones she’s raising, Lipson pushes beyond the easy, surface stories we tell about ourselves to brave less certain territory.

Mothers and Other Fictional Characters is a shimmering love letter to our forgotten selves—and the ones we’re still becoming.

Nicole Graev Lipson’s writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, selected for The Best American Essays anthology, and shortlisted for a National Magazine Award. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the LA Review of Books, The Millions, Nylon, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe.

Nicole holds a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Emerson College. Originally from New York City, she lives outside of Boston with her family.

In our conversation, we’ll talk about how Nicole reconnected with Jewish tradition (beginning with a book!), the vital importance of bringing more complexity to the experience of motherhood, and Nicole’s tender and nuanced approach to parenting a child who doesn’t fit into gender norms.

Nicole Graev Lipson's Five Books:

1. The Chosen by Chaim Potok

2. I and Thou by Martin Buber

3. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich

4. Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry

5. Mothers and Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Gayle Forman on Judy Blume, Taylor Swift, and the Innate Goodness of Young People

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000

To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father's gone, his mother is struggling with mental health issues, and he's now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn't matter at all, like he's nothing. So when a kid at school actually tells him he's nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker pulls some strings and gets him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to juvie. There, he meets Josey, the 107-year-old Holocaust survivor who stopped bothering to talk years ago. And when Alex and Josey form an unlikely bond, with Josey confiding in him, Alex starts to believe he can make a difference--a good difference--in the world. If he can truly feel he matters, Alex may be able to finally rise to the occasion of his own life.

Gayle Forman has written several bestselling novels, including those in the Just One Day series, Where She Went, and the #1 New York Times bestseller If I Stay, which has been translated into more than forty languages and was adapted into a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz. Her first middle grade novel, Frankie & Bug, was a New York Times best children’s book of the year.

In our conversation, we’ll discuss the link between anxiety and creativity, Judaism's instructions for living with loss, and how all of us are capable of rising to the occasion of our lives.

Gayle Forman's Five Books:

1. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume

2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

3. The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

4. Orbital by Samantha Harvey

5. Not Nothing by Gayle Forman

Other Books Mentioned:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Jennifer Weiner on Pushing Back Against De-Jewified Last Names, “Women’s Fiction,” and Activism in the Face of Despair

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were thrust into the spotlight as The Griffin Sisters, a pop duo that defined the aughts. Together, they skyrocketed to the top, gracing MTV, SNL, and the cover of Rolling Stone. Cassie, a musical genius who never felt at ease in her own skin, preferred to stay in the shadows. Zoe, full of confidence and craving fame, lived for the stage. But fame has a price, and after one turbulent year, the band abruptly broke up.

Now, two decades later, the sisters couldn’t be further apart. Zoe is a suburban mom warning her daughter Cherry to avoid the spotlight, while Cassie has disappeared from public life entirely. But when Cherry begins unearthing the truth behind their breathtaking rise and infamous breakup, long-buried secrets surface, forcing all three women to confront their choices, their desires, and their complicated bonds.

Jennifer Weiner’s books have spent over five years on the New York Times bestseller list, including several times at #1. She has written over a dozen works of fiction and the nonfiction collection Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016), which was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Opinion section in addition to numerous other publications. Her novel “In Her Shoes” was turned into a movie starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. Jennifer graduated from Princeton University in 1991 and lives in Philadelphia with her family.

In our conversation, we’ll discuss Jennifer’s feminism, raising daughters, and why she has never felt more Jewish than right now.

Jennifer Weiner's Five Books:

1. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

2. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

3. Dark Tower by Stephen King

4. Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

5. The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

For transcripts etc find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Dara Horn on Being the Lorax at Her Seder Table

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books, including the novels The World to Come, All Other Nights, and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Her latest book is the graphic novel One Little Goat.

At the Passover seder, an out-of-control family cannot find their afikoman and as a result, they are trapped at a seder that cannot end. Six months in, a wisecracking talking goat shows up at their door with bad news: Thousands of years of previous seders have accumulated underneath their seder, and their afikoman is stuck in one of them. Now the family’s “wise child” must travel down with the goat through centuries of previous Passovers to find it– and to discover the questions he needs to start asking.

Dara Horn is also the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among many other honors. Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard.

Dara Horn's Five Books:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Gila Pfeffer (author of Nearly Departed.)

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or Facebook at The Five Books Podcast

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

BONUS: Dara Horn on Tevye the Dairyman

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Award-winning author Dara Horn is also a professor of Jewish literature. In discussing the Tevye story, she went into a deep dive, explaining each of the daughters’ marriages as a confrontation with a different political challenge to Russian Jews. I was riveted and wanted to share with you as well!

Georgia Hunter on Discovering her Family’s Jewish History and Kindness as Resistance

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000

When Georgia Hunter was fifteen years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times best seller, We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series. One Good Thing is Georgia’s second novel.

In our conversation, Georgia will talk about the hold that multi-generational Holocaust stories have on her, about kindness as resistance, and her realization after publishing her family’s story that she could write another book.

Georgia Hunter's Five Books:

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman

2. Send for Me by Lauren Fox

3. James by Percival Everett

4. The Lost Baker of Vienna (galley) by Sharon Kurtzman

5. One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Rob Kutner on Writing for The Daily Show, Conan, and How Comedy and Judaism Overlap

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Rob Kutner’s new irreverent book on Jewish history, The Jews: 5000 Years and Counting covers every major moment in Jewish history from Adam and Eve to Tuesday’s rerun of Seinfeld. This book will make you laugh, it might inadvertently make you learn, and it might just be a balm for our times that you didn’t know you needed (Simon & Schuster).

Rob Kutner is an Emmy, Peabody, Grammy, and TCA-winning writer for late-night TV including The Daily Show and TBS’ Conan. He is also the author of the humor books including Apocalypse How (Running Press, 2008) and the kids’ comedy-horror graphic novel Snot Goblins and Other Tasteless Tales (First Second, 2023).

He has also written material for the Oscars, Emmys, and two White House Correspondents Dinners, and was named a “SuperJew” by Time Out New York.

Rob Kutner’s Five Books:

1. The Big Book of Jewish Humor by Moshe Waldoks and William Novak

2. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg

3. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

4. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

5. The Jews by Rob Kutner

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org

Find us online at www.fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Allegra Goodman on Making the Exotic Familiar, and Finding the Modern in Ancient Words

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 07:00:00 -0000

Isola is inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, and is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.

Allegra Goodman’s books include Sam, The Family Markowitz, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories.

Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In our conversation Allegra will tell us about what it was like growing up in a traditional Jewish household in Honolulu. We’ll hear about her fascination with shtetl life and how her novel Kaaterskill Falls, about an orthodox community in upstate New York, was inspired by George Eliot. And she’ll tell us about the secret Jewish character in her new book, Isola.

Allegra Goodman’s’ Five Books:

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

Send us your thoughts! Team@fivebookspod.org

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Introducing Chutzpod!

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0000

Today, we’re excited to introduce you to Chutzpod, a podcast that offers frank and wide-ranging conversations on how to build a good life.

Each week on Chutzpod, Rabbi Shira Stutman and co-host Hanna Rosin tackle life’s toughest questions through a Jewish lens. If you’ve ever wondered whether to forgive a friend who won’t apologize, felt annoyed by service dogs on your flight, or pondered how to heal our broken world, this podcast is for you.

In this episode, Shira and Hanna delve into listener-submitted questions, blending real-life stories with millennia-old wisdom to help you navigate the complexities of life. Whether you're a Hebrew school truant, a proud yeshiva graduate, or someone seeking inspiration without the synagogue schlep, Chutzpod welcomes everyone striving for a meaningful life in these trying times.

Listen to Chutzpod wherever you get your podcasts.

We'd love to hear your feedback!

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0000

We just finished our very first season of The Five Books! While we're preparing Season 2, we'd love to hear what you thought of our show. You can email us at team@fivebookspod.org.

We will be back on March 18 with some incredible authors for Season Two like Allegra Goodman, Georgia Hunter, Gayle Forman and more. Thank you for listening, sharing with your friends and loved ones, and for being a part of this incredible community of Jewish Book readers.

Tova Mirvis on Community, Belonging, and Forgiveness

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0000

We Would Never is a riveting literary page-turner that maps the extremes to which a family will go in order to protect their own.

No one appears more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—has always tried to do what is expected of her and is regarded as the family peacemaker. But is anyone, including Hailey, who she has always seemed to be?

Inspired by a true story, We Would Never is a gripping mystery, an intimate family drama, and a provocative exploration of loyalty, betrayal, and the blurred line between protecting and forsaking the ones we love most.

Tova Mirvis is the author of the memoir The Book of Separation as well as four novels, We Would Never, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine and Real Simple, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her family.

Our conversation explores the fine line between what it means to be an insider vs an outsider, the way the past retains a pull on the present, and the stretchiness of moral boundaries. Throughout, Tova reflects on the ways in which venturing beyond our comfort zones can be both enriching and destabilizing.

Tova Mirvis’ Five Books:

All-of-a-Kind Family, Sidney Taylor
My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
The Postcard, Anne Berest
Songs For the Brokenhearted, Ayelet Tsabari
We Would Never, Tova Mirvis

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Bonny Reichert on Food, Fear, and Finding Beauty

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0000

Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head-on.

Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past with her future, the author recounts the defining moments of her life in a poignant tale of scarcity and plenty.

How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman’s search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother, and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.

Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She has been an editor at Today’s Parent and Chatelaine, and a columnist and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail. When she turned forty, she had a now-or-never feeling in her bones and quit her job to enroll in culinary school. After that, she began to explore her relationship with food on the page, seeing her childhood in the restaurant business and her background as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor in a new light. Bonny was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Toronto with her husband and little dog, Bruno. Her three almost-adult children come and go. She holds a master of fine art in creative nonfiction and teaches writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. How to Share an Egg is her first book.

In our conversation, Bonny remembers how she protected her Holocaust survivor father from the antisemitism she experienced as a child. She shares how she found the strength to tell both her father’s story and her own, and on the foods that have meant the most to her.

Bonny Reichert's Five Books:

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Jessica Elisheva Emerson on Belief, Identity, and Women’s Desire

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0000

Olive Days is a novel about Rina Kirsch, a young mother and Modern Orthodox Jew in Los Angeles. But a contradiction burns at her center: Rina is an atheist. She is also stymied in her life and marriage.

Hoping to reinvigorate their relationship, Rina’s husband convinces her to partake in a night of wife swapping with other Orthodox couples. Rather than preserve her marriage, however, the swap plunges Rina down a heady path that begins with a rekindled passion for painting and culminates in an intoxicating affair with Will, her married art teacher. Rina must decide if it’s worth sacrificing everything she’s ever known to fully inhabit the uncharted landscape unfolding before her, one where her needs take precedence. (Counterpoint Press)

Jessica earned her MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and her BA in journalism from USC. She lives with her husband and children in the Sonoran Desert.

In our conversation, Jessica will expound on the complexities of belief, identity and women’s desire. Jessica delves into how her own atheism sits alongside her Jewish practice, and why she thinks of herself as a pessimist who finds joy in life.

Jessica Elisheva Emerson’s Five Books:

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Elyssa Friedland on Being a First Generation American and Why Representation in Books Matters

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0000

After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong.

The Jacobson children reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when each sibling is facing drama in their own life.

When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters, Laura and Sophie, go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together. (Penguin Random House)

Jackpot Summer was a USA Today bestseller, a Skimm Reads Pick and one of She Reads Most Anticipated Contemporary Fiction 2024.

Elyssa Friedland is the acclaimed author of Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, The Floating Feldmans, The Intermission and Love and Miss Communication. Elyssa is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School and currently teaches novel writing at Yale. She lives with her husband and three children in New York City.

Elyssa reflects on how exotic American-born parents felt to her as a kid, and how 10/7 led to some last minute changes to Jackpot Summer.

Elyssa Friedland’s Five Books:

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.

Gila Pfeffer on Finding Meaning and Humor in the Darkest Times

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0000

By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost her mother to breast cancer and her father to colon cancer. A simple blood test confirmed she carried the BRCA1 gene—which put her at high risk of developing cancer herself. Determined to break the cycle of early death in her family, Gila decides to undergo an elective double mastectomy.

This memoir follows her journey as she becomes a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, grows up, falls in love, and enters motherhood, before her life is derailed yet again. Her double mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast.

Drenched in Gila’s dark humor, Nearly Departed is a story about thriving against the odds, committing to what’s important, and leaving a better legacy than the one you inherited. (The Experiment).

Gila Pfeffer is a Jewish American writer and humorist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Today.com, and elsewhere. Gila’s monthly “Feel It on the First” campaign reminds women to prioritize their breast health. She splits her time between New York City and London.

In this intimate conversation, Gila reflects on why she’s grateful for her “big mouth,” and her impulse to find meaning - and humor - in even the most painful experiences.

Gila Pfeffer’s Five Books:

Other Resources:

Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Samantha Greene Woodruff on Blacklists and being a 'Christmas Tree Jew'

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0000

The Trade Off is the story of a brilliant and ambitious young woman striving to find her place amid the promise and tumult of 1920s Wall Street.

Bea Abramovitz has a gift for math and numbers, and for finding patterns within the stock market. But in the 1920s, in a Lower East Side tenement, opportunities for (Jewish) women on Wall Street don't just come knocking.

It's easier for her golden-boy twin brother, Jake, who longs to reclaim all their parents lost after fleeing the pogroms in Russia to come to America. Well intentioned but undisciplined, Jake has a charm that can carry him only so far on Wall Street. So Bea devises a plan to be the brains behind her brother, acting as broker. As Jake's reputation, his heedless ego, and the family fortune soar, Bea foresees catastrophe: an impending crash that could destroy everything if she doesn't finally take control. (Lake Union)

Samantha Greene Woodruff has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and spent fifteen years at Viacom’s Nickelodeon before leaving to parent her two young children. Her first novel, The Lobotomist’s Wife was a #1 Amazon bestseller and Amazon First Reads Pick. The Trade Off is her second novel.

Samantha expounds upon her love of Christmas, what it meant to step into her Jewish identity post 10/7, and her conflicted feelings toward wealth.

Samantha Greene Woodruff’s Five Books:

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council.

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Yehuda Kurtzer on Grappling with History and Memory

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

The New Jewish Canon is both text and textbook, a rich collection of major Jewish ideas from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. With over eighty excerpts from key primary source texts and insightful corresponding essays by leading scholars, on topics of history and memory, Jewish politics and the public square, religion and religiosity, and identities and communities, The New Jewish Canon promises to start conversations from the seminar room to the dinner table. (Academic Studies Pres)

Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Yehuda is a leading thinker on the essential questions facing contemporary Jewish life. He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, the host of the Identity/Crisis podcast. He writes, teaches, and lectures widely about contemporary Jewish life.

Yehuda is trained as a scholar of ancient Judaism and rabbinics with a doctorate in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and previously served as a member of the faculty at Brandeis University, where he held the inaugural Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation.

In this wide ranging conversation Yehuda will reflect on his unusual upbringing as the child of a diplomat with a front row seat to Middle East politics, on falling in love with second century rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, and his optimistic take on a new path forward for Israel and the Middle East.

Yehuda Kurtzer’s Five Books:

As a Driven Leaf, by Milton Steinberg
Zakhor, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
In The Land of Israel, by Amos Oz
The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden
The New Jewish Canon, edited by Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire E. Sufrin

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council.

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Zibby Owens on the Healing Power of the Written Word

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

On Being Jewish Now is an intimate and hopeful collection of 75 meaningful, smart, funny, sad, emotional, and inspiring essays from today’s authors and advocates about what it means to be Jewish, how life has changed since the attacks on October 7th, 2023, and the unique culture that brings this group together.

Contributors include Mark Feuerstein, Jill Zarin, Steve Leder, Joanna Rakoff, Amy Ephron, Lisa Barr, Annabelle Gurwitch, Daphne Merkin, Bradley Tusk, Sharon Brous, Jenny Mollen, Nicola Kraus, Caroline Leavitt, and many others. (Zibby Books)

Zibby Owens is the bestselling author of Blank: A Novel, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, Princess Charming, and the forthcoming novel Overheard. She is the editor of three anthologies: On Being Jewish Now, Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology and Moms Don’t Have Time To Have Kids: A Timeless Anthology. Zibby is the founder and CEO of Zibby Media, which includes the Zibby Books boutique publishing house, Zibby’s Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, CA, the award-winning daily podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, which she hosts, Zibby’s Book Club, and Zibby Retreats for book lovers.

Zibby shares what draws her to books and writing, and what compels her to speak up for Jewish authors.

Zibby Owens' Five Books:

Other Books & Resources:

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of The Jewish Book Council. November 24 to December 24 is Jewish Book Month! Celebrate with Jewish Book Council. https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Francine Klagsbrun on Embracing and Reshaping Tradition

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream reveals the complex life and work of Henrietta Szold, renowned as the founder of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. She later moved to Mandate Palestine to help shape education, health, and social services there. The pinnacle of her career came in her seventies, when she took on the task of directing the Youth Aliyah program, which rescued thousands of young people from the Nazis and resettled them in Palestine.

Using Szold’s copious letters, diaries, and essays, along with other archival documents, Francine Klagsbrun reveals Szold as a multi-faceted human being whose impact on women’s lives as well as on education and health systems still resonates. (Jewish Lives Series, Yale University Press).

Francine Klagsbrun has also had a tremendous impact on the story of American Jewish women. Born in 1931, she has been a passionate advocate for women in Jewish religious life. Francine is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 2017.

She has been a columnist for New York Jewish Week and Moment, is a contributing editor to Lilith, and is on the editorial board of Hadassah Magazine. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Ms. magazine, and other national publications.

Charming and wry, Francine reflects on her unlikely Jewish education as a girl in the 1930s and 40s, on the seeds of her feminist activism, and on why she is grateful to have reinvigorated Szold’s legacy.

Francine Klagsbrun’s Five Books:

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Jean Meltzer on ‘Jewitches’ and Jewish Joy

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

In Magical Meet Cute, Faye Kaplan is definitely happy alone. That is, until she finds her town papered with anti-Semitic flyers. Desperate for comfort, Faye drunkenly turns to her pottery. A golem protector is just what her town needs…and adding details to make him her ideal man can’t hurt, right?

When a mysterious stranger turns up the next day, Greg seems too good to be true, causing Faye to wonder if his appearance might be anything but a coincidence. (Mira)

Jean started her career in television where she won numerous awards including a Daytime Emmy. She spent five years in rabbinical school before her chronic illness forced her to withdraw.

In this conversation, Jean reflects on “second wave” Jewish books and finding herself represented on the page, on Jewish magic (or being a “Jewitch”), and Jewish joy.

Jean Meltzer’s Five Books:

Books and Resources on Jewish Magic:

The Jewish Joy Community:

Other Books Jean Mentioned:

Marry Me by Midnight by Felicia Grossman

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt

Yael van der Wouden on Rage, Desire, and Magic

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, The Safekeep is “a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires” (The Guardian). (Simon and Schuster)

Yael memorably reflects on the mouse that helped her to make friends, her gravitation toward magic, the book that convinced her not to get a nose job, and the nature of complicity, trauma and reconciliation.

Yael van der Wouden’s Five Books:

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (to be released early 2025)
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt

Benjamin Resnick on the Enduring Precariousness of Jewish Life

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Benjamin Resnick’s debut novel, Next Stop, is a work of speculative fiction that explores the precariousness of Jewish American life through the lens of one family. After a black hole consumes the State of Israel, similar strange events occur in cities around the world, ushering in a time of chaos as well as miracles. (Simon and Schuster) Benjamin Resnick is the rabbi of the Pelham Jewish Center in New York.

Our wide ranging and thought-provoking conversation touches on the recurring appearance of false messiahs, Hebrew as the enduring language of Jews, and Jewish joy even in times of trauma.

Benjamin’s Resnick’s Five Books:

Relevant Links:

Satan in Goray by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Cooking Pot on display at the Museum of the Jewish Heritage

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Artwork by Dena Friedman

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Coming Soon: The Five Books

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 14:20:00 -0000

Join us December 3rd! Each episode will feature a candid conversation with a Jewish author about five books that are near and dear to them.

We’ll hear about the books that helped form their identities, the books that changed their worldview, and we’ll get the inside scoop on a new book they’ve just published.