Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, marks more than just one beginning; it is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days, and the official start of a ten-day period of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur. The day, celebrated this year on September 15, is a chance to begin a time of renewal, reflection and, of course, connection.
On this sacred occasion, we are looking beyond BC to bring you titles from independent publishers across Canada. Whether through poetry drawing from contemporary Jewish identity or memoirs tracing the footsteps walked by previous generations, Rosh Hashanah invites us to explore the stories, wisdom, and diverse narratives that shape Jewish culture and thought.
MEMOIR
Galena Bay Odyssey: Reflections of a Hippie Homesteader by Ellen Schwartz (Heritage House)
What compelled a nice Jewish girl from the suburbs of New York to spend a decade of her life as a hippie homesteader in the BC wilderness? Galena Bay Odyssey traces Ellen Schwartz’s journey from a born-and-raised urbanite terrified of the woods to a self-determined logger, cabin-builder, gardener, chicken farmer, apiarist, and woodstove cook living on a communal farm in the Kootenays.
Part memoir, part exploration of what motivated the exodus of young hippies—including American expatriates like Ellen and her husband Bill—to go “back to the land” in remote parts of North America during the 1960s and ’70s, this fascinating book explores the era’s naivety, idealism, and sense of adventure. Like most “back to the land” books, Galena Bay Odyssey describes the physical work involved in clearing land, constructing buildings, and living off of what they produced, but it also traces the complicated journey of discovery this experience brought to Ellen and Bill.
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The Listener: In The Shadow Of The Holocaust by Irene Oore (University of Regina Press)
During the Holocaust, Irene Oore’s mother escaped the death camps by concealing her Jewish identity. Those years found her constantly on the run and on the verge of starvation, living a harrowing and peripatetic existence as she struggled to keep herself and her family alive during World War II in Poland and beyond.
These stories traumatized Irene as a child, but in The Listener, she shares these same stories—of fear, of love, of hunger and survival—with her own children. In this memoir that, according to Kirkus Reviews, “demonstrates the persistence of memory and the pervasiveness of evil,” keeping the stories alive in the family also means honouring the gravity of what it means to survive.
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Tiny Lights for Travellers by Naomi K. Lewis (University of Alberta Press)
“Why couldn’t I occupy the world as those model-looking women did with their flowing hair,” writes Naomi K. Lewis in this unforgettable memoir, “pulling their tiny bright suitcases as if to say, I just arrived from elsewhere, and I already belong here, and this sidewalk belongs to me?”
Upon the discovery of a diary documenting her beloved Opa’s escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942, Naomi decides to retrace his journey to freedom. Travelling alone from Amsterdam to Lyon, she discovers family secrets and in the process defines her own narrative as a second-generation Jewish Canadian.
With vulnerability, humour, and wisdom, Tiny Lights for Travellers asks tough questions about identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations.
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Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of (In)fertility by Myriam Steinberg (Page Two Books)
A few months after Myriam Steinberg turned forty, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer to become a mother. She made the difficult decision to begin the process of conceiving a child without a partner, drawing support from her family and friends as she chooses a sperm donor.
But Myriam’s journey was far from straightforward, and in this deeply moving graphic memoir, she documents the soaring highs and devastating lows of becoming pregnant and then losing her babies.
From the frustration of grappling with how to make the right medical choices to the endless endurance tests brought by the silences, loneliness, and taboos that come with fetal loss, Catalogue Baby, according to Miss.Conception Coach founder Chiemi Rajamahendran, “gives us a beautiful and raw glimpse of the reality of the ups and downs and relentless grief that rings true for so many. […] Myriam shows how much support we need along the way and how it’s healthy to feel frustration, jealousy, and hope all at once.”
Beautifully illustrated by Christache Ross, this winner of the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature is one woman’s story of tragedy and beating the odds, and is a resource for all women and couples who are trying to conceive.
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POETRY
Not One of These Poems Is About You by Teva Harrison (House of Anansi)
In this frank and powerfully gut-wrenching work of poetry and art, Teva Harrison presents a unique perspective on what it means to live with metastatic breast cancer. She plunges us deep into her inner world, shadowing the progression of the disease and bringing us along as reality takes on sharp edges with every swell of cancer and every retreat after chemo. All the while, Teva contemplates the textures her life and selfhood must now take: her inner corporeal reality versus her outer manifestation of health, vitality, and femininity; holding fast to the great love of her life while preparing to leave him behind; who she was before cancer, and who she is after and beyond cancer.
Starkly honest and wholly profound, Not One of These Poems Is About You is a masterful work from an award-winning author and illustrator that distills life to its essence—and not one drop less.
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A Brief and Endless Sea by Barbara Pelman (Caitlin Press)
Many of the poems in A Brief and Endless Sea are rooted in Jewish tradition, such as the prophet Isaiah’s words of comfort, the rabbinical story of the Lost Princess, even the concept of tsimtsum or צמצום, which explores the role of withdrawal in creating space for something new.
While Barbara Pelman takes us to difficult places—the dissolution of a marriage, caring for a parent with dementia, the catalogue of things in life you have to lose to gain—this collection does not leave us there. Harnessing the power of words to map a route out, A Brief and Endless Sea pulls us toward life in all of its vibrant details: the pleasures of teaching poetry, long walks with a grandson, perspective-altering encounters with spirituality, and the simple beauty of a small garden of tomatoes and roses.
Available October 13!
FICTION
Duck Island by Steve Weiner (New Star Books)
When a troubled Jewish young man named Cal Bedrick meets a nice Catholic girl named Frannie Sinkiewicz, their courtship leads quickly to a marriage that fills their acquaintances with doubts.
Setting the young couple’s story against the backdrop of a fictionalized Wausau, Wisconsin in the tail end of the Vietnam War, Duck Island vividly contrasts a society whose liberal surface conceals a troubled soul.
Like a David Lynch film, this novel spins a whole world through a rich assortment of small-town figures, each from their very own corner of Wausau: war veterans, immigrants, the town’s merchants, a convenience store manager, the parish priest, and Frannie’s conservative family, headed by her patriarch of a brother.
Available October 31!
You Are Not What We Expected by Sidura Ludwig (House of Anansi)
This stunningly intimate collection of stories finds Isaac moving back from LA to help his sister care for her suddenly motherless grandchildren—only to end up embroiled in even more drama than he would like in their suburban neighbourhood. Meanwhile, a nanny miles from her own family in the Philippines cares for a young boy who doesn’t fit in at school, a woman in mid-life contends with the task of cleaning out the house in which she grew up while her teenage son struggles with why his dad moved out, and down the street, a mother and her two daughters prepare for transitions they didn’t see coming.
Spanning fifteen years in the lives of a multi-generational family and their neighbours, You Are Not What We Expected is an exquisite portrait of a suburban Jewish community by a writer with a keen eye for detail, a gentle sense of humour, and an immense literary talent.
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The Sleep of Apples: Stories by Ami Sands Brodoff (Inanna Publications)
This finalist for the 2022 International Book Award explores the lives of nine closely linked characters as they walk the tightrope of survival in a gritty Montreal neighbourhood slowly losing itself to gentrification.
Fierce, original and bracingly honest, the world of The Sleep of Apples is populated by troubled teenagers, an experienced psychiatrist, a truck driver permanently scarred by a near-fatal accident and a recreation therapist, all of them struggling to build a community and make their lives—and their deaths—meaningful. Readers are witnesses as these indelible characters gain strength, insight and empathy through their struggles and suffering, each bearing the scars of trauma but possessing the gift of resilience.
With range that speaks to Ami Sands Brodoff’s Jewish heritage, her life as a cancer survivor, as well as her experience as a loving mother to a gay son and a transgender son, these unforgettable stories illuminate all the ways that we all, no matter where we each come from, live imperfect lives.
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