Invigorate your mind and spirit at Beit Ahavah’s monthly Jewish Book Group!

3rd Monday of the month, 7-8:30 p.m. Started by new member Anne Bussler, Jewish Book Group has quickly picked up speed and become an integral place to gather as we read, discuss, and reflect in ways that connect us to each other and to our faith.  Check website or contact Anne for confirmation of date and book.

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Sample Titles & Dates:

Join us for a very special Social Justice Book Group during Yom Kippur. Held at Beit Ahavah, Jewish Book Group is a once-a-month event led by Anne Bussler. For the month of September we are going to integrate our normal Book Group into the Day of Atonement reflections by meeting on the afternoon of Yom Kippur. All welcome! Appropriately, we will be reading “Days of Awe: A Novel” by Achy Obejas. We hope that through this text we can delve further into, relate to, and find meaning in the High Holydays. Read as much as you can in advance, but even just a few chapters is okay. Reviews and descriptions below. In this novel, “Obejas relates the compelling and disquieting history of Judaism and anti-Semitism in Cuba amidst evocative musings on exile, oppression, inheritance, the unexpected consequences of actions both weak and heroic, and the unruliness of desire and love.” Ms. Magazine writes: “Lyrically written, Days of Awe reflects the way Cuban Spanish is spoken with poetic rhythm and frankness.” For questions, please contact us at (413) 587-3770 or info@beitahavah.org. More information about High Holydays and Jewish Book Group see www.beitahavah.org and our Official High HolyDays event page on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/events/1028397473984838/. All are welcome, always free. Contributions always accepted. Be sure to check out all the other amazing events we will be offering on Yom Kippur and throughout the fall Holyday season found on https://www.beitahavah.org/events/high-holy-days/. Reviews: “RICH AND SONOROUS PROSE . . . There’s plenty of reason to hope for the future of a fiction that welcomes writers with such a passionate sense of the past.” –San Jose Mercury News On New Year’s Day, 1959, Alejandra San José was born in Havana, entering the world through the heart of revolution. Fearing the turmoil brewing in Cuba, her parents took Ale and fled to the shores of North America–ending up in Chicago amid a close community of Cuban refugees. As an adult, Ale becomes an interpreter, which takes her back to her homeland for the first time. There, she makes her way back through San José history, uncovering new fragments of truth about the relatives who struggled with their own identities so long ago. For the San Josés, ostensibly Catholics, are actually Jews. They are conversos who converted to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition. As Alejandra struggles to confront what it is to be Cuban and American, Catholic and Jewish, she translates her father’s troubling youthful experiences into the healing language of her own heart.