Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

New Jersey

A Novel 

Button Man

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#hardcover #ya #youngadultfiction #jewish #diverse #teenage #realisticfiction

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Oregon

HARPER’S DAD IS getting a divorce from her beloved stepmother, Jane. Even worse, Harper has lost her stepsister, Tess; the divorce divides them. Harper decides to escape by joining a volunteer program to build a house for a family in Tennessee who lost their home in a tornado. Not that she knows a thing about construction.

Soon she’s living in a funky motel and working long days in blazing heat with a group of kids from all over the country. At the site, she works alongside Teddy, the son of the family for whom they are building the house. Their partnership turns into a summer romance, complete with power tools. Learning to trust and love Teddy isn’t easy for Harper, but it’s the first step toward finding her way back home.


From the Hardcover edition.

How to Build a House

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Animated Menorah

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Daniel Silva

Gabriel Allon #17 — Sticker residue on front cover.

A Novel

“One of fiction’s greatest spies,” (Kirkus), Gabriel Allon returns for his seventeenth adventure in the new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva. The Black Widow, the last book in the series, was a prescient and timely thriller — called “a sobering, insightful, and multifaceted look at the overwhelming complexities of the seemingly interminable war in the Middle East” (Booklist, starred review). It drew rave reviews from critics and readers. It also introduced a compelling new female spy, destined to make a return in the series. Fans and new readers alike will be drawn in once again by this masterful storyteller at the height of his writerly powers — “Silva is a true genius with his portrait of the Israeli assassin-art restorer facing new, real world complexities” (Politico).

House of Spies

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The acclaimed National Book Award finalist--"one of the United States' finest writers," according to Joshua Ferris, "full of wit, humanity, and fearless curiosity"--now gives us a novel that will join the short list of classics about children caught up in the Holocaust.

Aron, the narrator, is an engaging if peculiar and unhappy young boy whose family is driven by the German onslaught from the Polish countryside into Warsaw and slowly battered by deprivation, disease, and persecution. He and a handful of boys and girls risk their lives by scuttling around the ghetto to smuggle and trade contraband through the quarantine walls in hopes of keeping their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters alive, hunted all the while by blackmailers and by Jewish, Polish, and German police, not to mention the Gestapo.

When his family is finally stripped away from him, Aron is rescued by Janusz Korczak, a doctor renowned throughout prewar Europe as an advocate of children's rights who, once the Nazis swept in, was put in charge of the Warsaw orphanage. Treblinka awaits them all, but does Aron manage to escape--as his mentor suspected he could--to spread word about the atrocities? 
Jim Shepard has masterfully made this child's-eye view of the darkest history mesmerizing, sometimes comic despite all odds, truly heartbreaking, and even inspiring. Anyone who hears Aron's voice will remember it forever.

The Book of Aron

82fd2ccb-d895-42cd-b3f6-38b99d5920a6-1

Jerome Charyn

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

North Dakota

A master storyteller's novel of crime, corruption, and antisemitism in early 20th-century Manhattan Ravage & Son reflects the lost world of Manhattan's Lower East Side--the cradle of Jewish immigration during the first years of the twentieth century--in a dark mirror. Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, serves as the conscience of the Jewish ghetto teeming with rogue cops and swindlers. He rescues Ben Ravage, an orphan, from a trade school and sends him off to Harvard to earn a law degree. But upon his return, Ben rejects the chance to escape his gritty origins and instead becomes a detective for the Kehilla, a quixotic gang backed by wealthy uptown patrons to help the police rid the Lower East Side of criminals. Charged with rooting out the Jewish "Mr. Hyde," a half-mad villain who attacks the prostitutes of Allen Street, Ben discovers that his fate is irrevocably tied to that of this violent, sinister man. A lurid tale of revenge, this wildly evocative, suspenseful noir is vintage Jerome Charyn.

Ravage and Son

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Mary Doria Russell

Missouri

Set in Italy during the dramatic finale of World War II, this new novel is the first in seven years by the bestselling author of "The Sparrow" and "Children of God." High school & older.

A Thread of Grace

32242a2d-468a-48b9-85cf-9db842d6797f-1

Lara Vapnyar

1st Edition/1st Printing/Dust Jacket. Ex-library copy with typical stamps and interior marks. Binding severely cracked in front (pictured)

Stories 

Reflecting the perspective of a recent immigrant to the United States, a collection of short fiction explores the lives of Russians in Moscow and Russians in Brooklyn.

There Are Jews in My House

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Nancy Werlin

Harry and Alison are the worst of enemies. But when Harry suffers a paralyzing accident and his father, a rabbi, begins to tutor Alison's autistic twin brother for his bar mitzvah, the two begin to find comfort from each other.

Are You Alone on Purpose?

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Jill Dubois

Mair Rosh

Revised/2nd Edition, Library Binding. Ex-library copy with torn out front page and other typical internal markings/stamps.

Explores the geography, history, government, economy, people, and culture of Israel.

Israel (Cultures of the World)

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Abby Levine

Former library copy with expected stickers and markings. 

Max and his family prepare to celebrate Passover. In cumulative verse, Max and his sister Ruth shop for matzah in the Passover aisle of the grocery store. The family gathers for the traditional Seder that celebrates this holiday of freedom.

This Is the Matzah

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Anita Diamant

Michigan

A tale inspired by the post-Holocaust experience is set in an immigrant holding camp in 1945 Palestine, where four women, refugees from Nazi Europe, find healing in the bonds of friendship that are forged while recounting their losses.

Day after Night

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Francesca Segal

New York

"It is impossible to resist this novel's wit, grace, and charm." --Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia

A smart and slyly funny tale of love, temptation, confusion, and commitment; a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry. To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community--a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam's role in a warm, inclusive family he loves.

But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel's younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he'd care to admit. Ellie--beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent--offers a liberation that he hadn't known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home?


The Innocents

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Pearl Abraham

Minnesota

The author of "The Romance Reader" creates a stunning portrait of the disintegration of a marriage and the cultural clash between Hasidic and secular American values.

Giving up America

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Deborah Feldman

Pennsylvania

My Unorthodox Journey to Berlin

The definitive follow-up to Unorthodox (the basis for the award-winning Netflix series)—now updated with more than 50 percent new material—the unforgettable story of what happened in the years after Deborah Feldman left a religious sect in Williamsburg in order to forge her own path in the world. In 2009, at the age of twenty-three, Deborah Feldman packed up her young son and their few possessions and walked away from her insular Hasidic roots. She was determined to find a better life for herself, away from the oppression and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And in Exodus, Revisited she delves into what happened next—taking the reader on a journey that starts with her beginning life anew as a single mother, a religious refugee, and an independent woman in search of a place and a community where she can belong. Originally published in 2014, Deborah has now revisited and significantly expanded her story, and the result is greater insight into her quest to discover herself and the true meaning of home. Travels that start with making her way in New York expand into an exploration of America and eventually lead to trips across Europe to retrace her grandmother’s life during the Holocaust, before she finds a landing place in the unlikeliest of cities. Exodus, Revisited is a deeply moving examination of the nature of memory and generational trauma, and of reconciliation with both yourself and the world.

Exodus, Revisited

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Dani Shapiro

A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

"The ... author of Hourglass now gives us a new memoir about identity, paternity, and family secrets--a real-time exploration of the ... discovery she made last year about her father, and her struggle to piece together the hidden the story of her own life"--

Inheritance

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Allison Ofanansky

Set in Morocco, this sweet story of friendship and shared customs between a Jewish family and their Muslim neighbors provides a great introduction to the Moroccan Jewish holiday of Mimouna.

It's Mimouna -- the Moroccan Jewish holiday that marks the end of Passover, and when blessings are given for a year of prosperity and good luck. Miriam wants to help her mother make the sweet moufletot pancakes they always eat at their Mimouna party, but after following the rules of Passover, they don't have any flour in the house! So Miriam's mother takes her to visit their Muslim neighbors, who are happy to share.

The women drink tea together, and Miriam makes friends with a young girl named Jasmine. Miriam almost drops the bag of flour when she and Jasmine go to fetch it from the storeroom -- but luckily Jasmine is there to catch it! Jasmine and her family then join Miriam's family and friends to celebrate Mimouna.

This sweet story of friendship and shared customs will introduce North American readers to the Mimouna holiday. The book concludes with an author's note and a recipe for making moufletot, the sweet, paper-thin pancakes featured in the story, so that readers can enjoy, too.

Key Text Features

recipes

author's note

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.2

Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.6

Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

A Sweet Meeting on Mimouna Night

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Raisel’s Riddle

Carmit Delman

Ex-library copy with typical internal stamps/markings; what's more, binding in front is *damaged/torn* 

Growing up Between Cultures - A Memoir of an Indian Jewish Girl

"From the outside, no matter what the gradations of my mixed heritage, the shadow of Indian brown in my skin caused others to automatically perceive me as Hindu or Muslim. . . . Still, I trekked through life with the spirit of a Jew, fleshed out by the unique challenges and wonders of a combined brown and white tradition." In the politics of skin color, Carmit Delman is an ambassador from a world of which few are even aware. Her mother is a direct descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny, ancient community of Jews thriving amidst the rich cultural tableau of Western India. Her father is American, a Jewish man of Eastern European descent. They met while working the land of a nascent Israeli state. Bound by love for each other and that newborn country, they hardly took notice of the interracial aspect of their union. But their daughter, Carmit, growing up in America, was well aware of her uncommon heritage. "Burnt Bread and Chutney is a remarkable synthesis of the universal and the exotic. Carmit Delman's memories of the sometimes painful, sometimes pleasurable, often awkward moments of her adolescence juxtapose strikingly with mythic tales of her female ancestors living in the Indian-Jewish community. As rites and traditions, smells and textures intertwine, Carmit's unique cultural identity evolves. It is a youth spent dancing on the roofs of bomb shelters on a kibbutz in Israel--and the knowledge of a heritage marked by arranged marriages and archaic rules and roles. It is coming of age in Jewish summer camps and at KISS concerts--and the inevitable combination of old and new: ancient customs and modern attitudes, Jewish, Indian, and American. Carmit Delman's journey throughreligious traditions, family tensions, and social tribulations to a healthy sense of wholeness and self is rendered with grace and an acute sense of depth. "Burnt Bread and Chutney is a rich and innovative book that opens wide a previously unseen world.

Burnt Bread and Chutney

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Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.

The crime was called in by Rina Lazarus, and Decker is relieved to discover that she is a calm and intelligent witness. She is also the only one in the sheltered community willing to speak of this unspeakable violation. As Rina tries to steer Decker through the maze of religious laws, the two grow closer. But before they get to the bottom of this horrendous crime, revelations come to light that are so shocking, they threaten to come between the hard-nosed cop and the deeply religious woman with whom he has become irrevocably linked.

New, unread paperback, listed as in like new condition due to sticker residue on the front cover, and a little wear in the center of the front cover as shown in the last picture. ￼

Maryland

The Ritual Bath 

Karl Konig

Karl König: My Task is an inspiring introduction to König's remarkable life and work. This book combines König's autobiographical fragment and an essay by Peter Selg with two selected reminiscences written by König's colleagues Anke Weihs and Hans-Heinrich Engel.

Born in 1902 into a Jewish family, Karl König grew up in Vienna in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied medicine and during this time came across the work of Rudolf Steiner. Soon after graduating he worked with Ita Wegman in Switzerland, where he also met his wife, Tilla.

He was a pioneer in the early days of Pilgramshain, a home for children with special needs in Silesia, Germany. However, in 1936 under political pressure he left Germany for Austria. Here he had a large medical practice as well as being the focus of a group of young people interested in Steiner's work.

Following the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, König and many of the young people around him came to Britain as refugees. The ideal of working together as a community was put into practice with the founding of Camphill in 1939. König was the driving force behind the expansion of the Camphill movement across the British Isles, into Europe, South Africa and North America. He died in 1966

New unread book. Does have inscription on the first page.

Autobiography and Biographies

This is the story of a remarkable life, told in K nig's own words. Born in 1902, Karl K nig grew up in Vienna. He studied medicine, and during that time encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner. Soon after graduating, K nig worked with Ita Wegman in Switzerland, where he met his wife Tilla. In Germany, Karl K nig founded Pilgrimshain, a home for children with special needs. However, following the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, he and many young people around him moved to Great Britain as refugees. In 1939, the ideal of working together as a community was put into practice with the founding of Camphill. K nig became the driving force that led to the expansion of the Camphill movement throughout the British Isles, into Europe, South Africa, and North America. He died in 1966.

Karl König: My Task

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Cover is separating from book on the inside, see photos

All About Jewish Holidays and Customs

Michael Chabon

California

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life—and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage—and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

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Nevada

This small, chunky volume presents the witty, wonderful, deadpan and droll insight of Jewish culture and humor.


With chapters on wisdom, mitzvahs, dybbuks, proverbs, jokes, curses, conventions, mores (ethics), love amd marriage, men and women, children and family--this captivating collection provides reflections gleaned from a wealth of ancient, traditional and modern sources. The range of wise observations on the ways of the world, snappy one-liners, stories and expressions captures the spirit of the Jews throughout the centuries. Illustrated with sixty watercolor paintings, The Big Little Book of Jewish Wit & Wisdom will delight and engage even the toughest Jewish mother.

Some examples include:

When we hear a baby laugh, it is the loveliest thing that can happen to us. -- Sigmund Freud

A child's wisdom is also wisdom. -- Yiddish proverb

May you lose all your teeth but one, and may that one have a cavity. -- Anonymous (Yiddish curse)

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