Support JWA by purchasing a copy of one of our book picks through our Bookshop.org shop. Sign up to receive emails about author features throughout the year.

Abzuglutely: Battling Bellowing Bella Abzug by Sarah Aronson

This picture book introduces children to Bella Abzug, the iconic, outspoken politician and activist who fought for justice and women’s rights.

 

 

The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai

This powerful debut novel explores love that crosses ethnic and religious lines, an Israeli mother's struggle to keep her family intact in the United States, and the ways that exile forces us to reshape our identity in ways we could not imagine.

 

Counting Backwards by Jacqueline Friedland

This novel follows a lawyer as she uncovers a shocking pattern of medical malpractice in an immigration facility—malpractice with ties to her own family history. Inspired by real events, this gripping novel explores the long legacy of reproductive coercion in America.

 

 

The Eating Knife by Ayelet Amittay

This stunning collection of poems weaves together the Biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac with the poet's own personal and family history.

 

Go on Pretending by Alina Adams

In this multigenerational novel, set alternately in the United States, the Soviet Union, and post-Soviet Russia, three generations of women navigate the forces of history, family secrets, and their own drives, desires, and ambitions.  

 

 

Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond by Beejhy Barhany and Elisa Ung

A joyous celebration of Ethiopian Jewish cuisine, Gursha offers over one hundred recipes, stories, and traditions from the intersection of the African and Jewish diasporas.

 

 

I Just Let Life Rain Down on Me: Selected Letters and Reflections by Rahel Levin Varnhagen, selected and translated by Peter Wortsman

This collection presents selected letters of Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, née Levin, an illustrious German-Jewish Berlin literary salon hostess from the early nineteenth century, to correspondents as varied as princes, philosophers, family members, and the household cook. 

 

 

Making the Best of What's Left: When We're Too Old to Get the Chairs Reupholstered by Judith Viorst

This book by Judith Viorst explores the experiences and perspectives of individuals in their final fifth of life, generally between 80 and 100 years old. It delves into themes of aging, loss, and finding joy and meaning in later life.

 

 

The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin

In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin documents the transformation of Anne Frank from ordinary teenager to icon, revealing how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea.
 

 

Misophonia by Dana Vowinckel, translated by Adrian Nathan West

An insightful, heartfelt, and hilarious debut novel exploring cultural diaspora through one teenager’s summer across Berlin, Jerusalem, and Chicago.
 

 

Mothers and Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, this memoir-in-essays 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.
 

 

Promised Lands: Hadassah Kaplan and the Legacy of American Jewish Women in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine by Sharon Ann Musher

A deeply researched biography that sheds light on the life of a trailblazing Jewish woman, her groundbreaking family, and the influence of American Jewish women on Zionism. 
 

 

Revolutionary Legacies: Jewish Feminist Political Thinking with Jamaica Kincaid, Golda Meir, Hannah Arendt, Frida Kahlo, Gertrude Stein, and Emma Goldman by Marla Brettschneider

In this bold work of feminist political theory, Marla Brettschneider "thinks with" a range of extraordinary Jewish women about how to live vibrant lives and resist the settler colonialism at the heart of the modern project of freedom.
 

 

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore

This tender novel explores ghosts, queer romance, and family drama, all set in and around a Jewish funeral home.

 

 

Sisters of Fortune by Esther Chehebar

In this heart-warming and witty debut novel, three sisters chase love and grapple with the growing pains of young womanhood as they seek their place within and beyond their Syrian Jewish Brooklyn community.
 

 

Smashing the Tablets: Radical Retellings of the Hebrew Bible edited by Sara Lippman and Seth Rogoff

Provocative, radically creative new readings of biblical texts by major contemporary Jewish writers.
 

 

The Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor

Combining historical mystery and romance, this YA novel alternates between contemporary times and World War II Rome to tell the story of Lilah and her great-aunt Bruna, a member of the resistance.  

 

 

The Red House by Mary Morris

Award-winning novelist Mary Morris weaves together an unsolved family mystery, a poignant coming-of-age story, and a little-known corner of World War II history in this moving novel. 

 

 

The Roots of the Guava Tree: Growing Up Jewish and Arab in Colombia by Sonia Daccarett

A debut memoir about a young woman struggling to understand her identity as the daughter of a Jewish mother and Christian Palestinian father, coming of age in Colombia as increasing violence and the instability of the 1980s engulf her country.

 

 

The Story’s Not Over: Jewish Women and Embodied Selfhood in Graphic Narratives edited by Victoria Aarons

This collection considers Jewish women graphic novelists and the richly figured ways in which Jewish identity is complicated by gender, memory, generation, and place: the spaces—emotional, geographical, psychological—that women inhabit. 

 

 

Warsaw Testament by Rokhl Auerbach, translated by Samuel Kassow

This memoir by one of the only surviving members of the Oyneg Shabes, the top-secret archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, provides an unmatched portrait of the last days of Warsaw’s Yiddish literary and cultural community—and of her own struggle to survive.
 

 

We Would Never by Tova Mirvis

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. 

 

 

The Woman Question in Jewish Studies by Susannah Heschel and Sarah Imhoff

This collection takes a critical look at the difficulties women face in the field of Jewish studies, drawing on quantitative data, personal stories, and the gendered history of the field.