The Orchard is a commanding debut and a poignant coming-of-age story about a devout Jewish high school student whose plunge into the secularized world threatens everything he knows of himself.
Ari Eden’s life has always been governed by strict rules. In ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn, his days are dedicated to intense study and religious rituals, and adolescence feels profoundly lonely. So when his family announces that they are moving to a glitzy Miami suburb, Ari seizes his unexpected chance for reinvention.
Enrolling in an opulent Jewish academy, Ari is stunned by his peers’ dizzying wealth, ambition, and shameless pursuit of life’s pleasures. When the academy’s golden boy, Noah, takes Ari under his wing, Ari finds himself entangled in the school’s most exclusive and wayward group. These friends are magnetic and defiant—especially Evan, the brooding genius of the bunch, still living in the shadow of his mother’s death.
Influenced by their charismatic rabbi, the group begins testing their religion in unconventional ways. Soon Ari and his friends are pushing moral boundaries and careening toward a perilous future—one in which the traditions of their faith are repurposed to mysterious, tragic ends.
Mesmerizing and playful, heartrending and darkly romantic, The Orchard probes the conflicting forces that determine who we become: the heady relationships of youth, the allure of greatness, the doctrines we inherit, and our concealed desires.
Beginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker.
Expelled from three Jewish day-schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity.
The Instructions is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent. Combining the crackling voice of Philip Roth with the encyclopedic mind of David Foster Wallace, Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy—a novel that is muscular and exuberant, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable.
As a Driven Leaf brings the age of the Talmud to life in a breathtaking saga. This masterpiece of modern fiction tells the gripping tale of the renegade Talmudic sage, Elisha ben Abuyah, as he struggles to reconcile his faith with the allure of Hellenistic culture.
Set in Roman Palestine, As a Driven Leaf draws readers into the dramatic era of Rabbinic Judaism. Watch the great Talmudic sages at work in the Sanhedrin, eavesdrop on their arguments about theology and Torah, and agonize with them as they contemplate rebellion against an oppressive Roman rule.
Steinberg's classic novel transcends its historical setting with its depiction of a timeless, perennial feature of the Jewish experience: the inevitable conflict between the call of tradition and the glamour of the surrounding culture.
In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up.
There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions—and the ability to kill.
From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.
Set in seventeenth-century Poland, The Slave tells the poignant story of Jacob, a young Talmudic scholar sold into slavery after the Chmielnicki massacres. Jacob, a slave and cowherd in a Polish village high in the mountains, falls in love with Wanda, his master's daughter.
Even after he is ransomed, he finds he can't live without her, and the two escape together to a distant Jewish community. Racked by his consciousness of sin in taking a Gentile wife and by the difficulties of concealing her identity, Jacob nonetheless stands firm as the violence of the era threatens to destroy the ill-fated couple.
For Davita Chandal, growing up in New York in the 1930s and '40s is an experience of indescribable joy—and unfathomable sadness. Her loving parents, both fervent radicals, fill her with the fiercely bright hope for a new, better world. But the deprivations of war and the Depression take their ruthless toll.
And Davita, unexpectedly, finds in the Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandoned both a solace to her questioning inner pain and a test of her budding spirit of independence. To her, life's elusive possibilities for happiness, for fulfillment, for decency, become as real and resonant as the music of the small harp that hangs on her door, welcoming all guests with its sweet, gentle tones.
Secrets of Jewish Wealth Revealed! is a roadmap to financial prosperity, designed to assist anyone who wishes to prosper and live the American dream.
Blending humor, personal anecdotes, proverbial wisdom, and biblical references, this book is a readable guide towards achieving prosperity throughout life's various stages.
Rabbi Celso blends Godly wisdom and common sense, offering practical solutions that the Jewish people have used for thousands of years to build and strengthen their financial standing.
He also highlights the pitfalls of many of our culture's poor spending habits, even though they've become accepted practices in today's world. Rabbi Celso states, "It makes no sense that someone would volunteer to be a slave, but that's exactly what's happening in the United States today. Far too many people are signing up to become slaves to their credit card companies."
This book presents a program of simple, but essential steps that Rabbi Celso believes will forever change the way people look at their finances and handle their money.
Rabbi Celso discloses the eternal truths behind the oldest financial system in history: the Jewish approach to financial management, which has survived the test of time.