Jewish Genre Reading Challenge discussion

This is the place to ask if you're looking for something specific. For example, you might want to read a book from the action/adventure genre but notice there's nothing on the book list with a female main character. Or perhaps you want a romance between two observant Jewish characters.

Our Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/96435...) is another great place to ask for recommendations, because you can make your own post describing exactly what you are or aren't looking for and multiple people can chime in with ideas. Goodreads is not great for doing specific replies, especially when there are multiple. So if you aren't finding the recommendations you seek here, be sure to post in the Facebook group as well.

This thread didn't end up getting used in 2024 but we'll see if it's helpful in 2024.

Anyone have recommendations for "Read a book with a Maghrebi, Beta Israel, Bene Israel, or Bukharan main character" prompt in the This & That Challenge? I'm not sure I've read anything about/from these groups - the closest I can think of is The Rabbi's Cat, which takes place in an Algerian Jewish community and might be considered Maghrebi, but I think I remember a character describing the community as Sephardi at some point.

Clara wrote: "Anyone have recommendations for "Read a book with a Maghrebi, Beta Israel, Bene Israel, or Bukharan main character" prompt in the This & That Challenge? I'm not sure I've read anything about/from t..."

Hi Clara, that is such a good question! I do have a few book ideas but not very many. After we created the This & That challenge prompts I worried that this particular prompt might be too limiting, just in terms of there not being much to choose from, especially not genre books.

The definition I've seen for Maghrebi Jews is "Jews of the Maghreb lived in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and parts of Libya." (Note the very sad past tense there, I believe almost all of those populations are gone from those regions.) But as you point out with The Rabbi's Cat, many Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition - those who became known as Sephardi Jews - settled in those countries as well. When that occurred, my understanding is that Maghrebi referred to the Jewish communities who were already in those regions and had been since antiquity, but eventually the two Jewish populations intermixed. Here's an interesting interview with a scholar whose area of studies is the Jews of North Africa. https://www.juedisches-museum.ch/en/j... I think for the purposes of this challenge, any Jew with cultural origins in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Libya would fulfill the challenge.

That's my long way of saying I believe The Rabbi's Cat would fulfill the prompt.

However, all of that being said, we have actually changed this prompt pair on the website, and I only today realized I forgot to update it here in the group. The new pair is instead: "3. Read a book featuring Jewish foods you've never tasted + Read book featuring a main character from a place you've never been." My hope is that this is a little more open-ended while still honoring the intention of reading about Jews from many cultures.

I'm being very wishy-washy about which prompt pair to stick with. If you have an opinion, I would love to hear it!

From Africa To Zion: The Shepherd Boy Who Became Israel's First Ethiopian‑born Journalist
We Are Black Jews. Ethiopian Jewry and the Journey to Equality in Israel
Bene Appetit: The Cuisine of Indian Jews
Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman
Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond
Meat Matters: Ethnographic Refractions of the Beta Israel
Princess of Sheba, Warrior of Israel: A Novel Inspired by the Legendary Origins of the Beta Israel Ethiopian Jews
Workitu’s Passover
Bachelor and the Bean: A Jewish Moroccan Folk Tale
Mazaltob: A Novel
Caravan of Hope: A Bukharan Woman's Journey to Freedom
The Sabbath Lion: A Jewish Folktale from Algeria
The Hyena People: Ethiopian Jews in Christian Ethiopia
The Storyteller's Beads
Straddling Black and White
Day of Delight: a Jewish Sabbath in Ethiopia
Yosef's Dream
Yuvi's Candy Tree
On the Wings of Eagles: An Ethiopian Child's Story
Pumpkin Pie for Sigd
On a Chariot of Fire: The Story of India’s Bene Israel
Growing up Jewish in India: Synagogues, Customs, and Communities from the Bene Israel to the Art of Siona Benjamin
Burnt Bread and Chutney: Growing Up Between Cultures - A Memoir of an Indian Jewish Childhood
Defiance In Samarkand