Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

Besides being open at the regular hours (Monday-Thursday afternoons 2-6 and Sunday mornings 9-12.30) the library will have three special programs, all free of charge, waiting for you in October.

On Sunday, the 19th we continue our monthly “Breakfast @ the Library” program. We are inviting every child and parent of the religious school, students at the Sunday morning adult classes, all members of local synagogues and any interested members of the public once a month for breakfast. From 8.45 till 10:30 AM we will serve bagels, shmears and juices at the library. We will have a chance to talk about our interesting new books and exciting upcoming programs.

On Sunday, the 26th the library will have a table at Simcha Sunday, where we will have materials (themed book lists, bookmarks, event flyers…) to take home. We are also planning to sell used books benefiting the library. For this latter cause we would like to ask you to donate your unwanted Judaica books up to a week before the event. It can be any book related to any aspect of Judaism, but we can only take books that are in “sellable” condition.

Last but not least we are happy to announce that Maggie Anton, an award-winning author, will give a talk entitled “Rashi’s Daughters: Three Women and a Talmud” in CBA’s social hall, at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 29th. She will discuss her historical novels and how Jewish women in Medieval France can be an inspiration to us today. Ms. Anton wrote three books on Rashi’s daughters. Her latest “Secret Scholar” is a tale of a young girl who challenges social conventions to engage in Jewish learning. This book is appropriate for both young and not so young adults. Hint: bring your (pre-)teen child to the talk for an inspiring evening.

We would like to introduce some of the new novels the library recently acquired, all showcased on our “new arrivals” shelf:

• Pearl Abraham’s “The seventh beggar” takes us from the contemporary life of a Hasidic teenager to Nachman of Bratslav’s past world of lost writings and courtly ritual, from a religious community in upstate New York to Palestine and Ukraine.
• Sayed Kashua’s “Let it be morning” illuminates the lives of Israel’s Arab minority through the story of an unnamed journalist who returns from Tel Aviv to his home village with his wife and infant daughter, in search of affordable living.
• Meir Shalev’s “The loves of Judith” is resolved slowly by Judith’s son Zayde, who may be the child of any of the three men–or, remarkably, all three. And so the men raise him, care for him, love him.
• Stacy Sims‘ “Swimming naked” unfolds the story of Lucy Greene’s childhood, at the height of which sits a freak accident that occurred one fateful summer at the family lake house, an event that transforms the family and sets a mother and her daughters on a very different course.
• Kate Wenner’s “Dancing with Einstein” explores the impact that history can have on a young life is powerful and moving, weaving back and forth between 1970s New York and 1950s Princeton.
• Steve Stern’s “The angel of forgetfulness” combines three distinct but interlinked narratives: the story of Nathan Hart, a Jewish immigrant on the Lower East Side circa 1910, a tale about an angel named Mocky and his half-human son and the account of Saul, a morose, lonely young man.