By FAYGIE HOLT (JNS) – There must be something about Jewish heroes of late. Not only is one featured in a new Hallmark Channel movie, “Holiday Date,” two were recently featured in romance novels from Harlequin’s Super Edition imprint. The latest, Holiday by Candlelight by Laurel Greer, is set around the December holiday season. It features a Jewish hero who has moved to a small […]

ALBANY–B’nai Sholom Reform Congregation kicks off its 2019-2020 “Synagogue Scholars” series with a discussion, led by Professor Emerita Martha Rozett, of Judas, a novel by Israeli author Amos Oz, Friday, Dec. 13. The program will begin following the congregation’s 8 p.m. Shabbat service at the synagogue, 420 Whitehall Rd., Albany. The service and program are open to the community. Judas tells the story […]

Memoirs of a False Messiah is Pamela Becker’s debut novel. Originally from New York, she has enjoyed a career as a marketing executive and consultant for several of Israel’s leading technology companies. After she was widowed with three small children, she co-founded and remains the active chairperson of the Israeli charity Jeremy’s Circle, which supports children coping with cancer treatment […]

Is narrator-protagonist a False Messiah or Not? Pamela Becker of Jerusalem, daughter of Jean and Marty Becker of Loudonville, has written a first novel. Click here for an interview with the author. By JONATHAN WEIL Pamela Becker’s first novel Memoirs of a False Messiah presents a challenge —and a struggle —for the reader —not because of its writing style or […]

By STEPHEN SILVER NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – Jewish summer camp is such a crucial part of the American Jewish experience that many Jewish adults, even in their older age, likely remember the names of many of the kids in their cabins from when they were 11 years old. One of those cabins more than 60 years ago contained a […]

By PENNY SCHWARTZ NEW YORK CITY (JTA)  – A Rosh Hashanah apple cake bake-off fit for reality television and another installment in the Scarlet and Sam series from the award-winning author Eric A. Kimmel are among the highlights in the crop of new High Holiday books for children. Six engaging reads for kids of all ages seize the spirit of the […]

By MARCY OSTER NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – Judith Krantz, one of the best-selling female novelists of all time, has died. Krantz died on at her home in Bel Air, Calif. at the age 91, Deadline  has reported. According to the Jewish Women’s Archives, Krantz is the third-largest-selling female novelist in history. “Although her goal is for her books to […]

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN (JNS) – Before Joe Lieberman was observing the Sabbath while running for vice president, Steven Spielberg throwing all of his considerable Hollywood weight behind a movie about the Holocaust and other celebrities advertising their Jewish identity and incorporating it in their public work, there was Herman Wouk. The novelist, who died on May 17, just 10 […]

By RACHEL GORDAN BOSTON (JTA) – Herman Wouk, the bestselling Orthodox Jewish author whose literary career spanned nearly seven decades and who helped usher Judaism into the American mainstream, died Friday, May 17, at the age of 103. His agent confirmed the news to The Associated Press. Wouk was the author of two dozen novels and works of nonfiction, including […]

(JTA) – Joyce Carol Oates’ grandmother was Jewish, but the author wasn’t aware of that fact until after her grandmother’s death in 1970. After immigrating to America, Oates’ ancestor hid her Jewish heritage from the rest of her family. “I felt an immense loss and sympathy because I never really knew that my grandmother was Jewish, so my whole cultural […]