The Newsletter of Fig Tree Books

September '24: Issue #58 --- Fredric D. Price, Founder & Publisher

JUST PUBLISHED from

FIG TREE BOOKS LLC & MANDEL VILAR PRESS:

It Takes Two to Torah,

by Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer

For the first time, in one volume, readers can take a tour of the entire Torah through the medium of one challenging, instructive, irreverent, animated conversation. Between 2018-2020, an Orthodox rabbi and Reform journalist talked through the Five Books of Moses with candor, humor, emotion, personal revelation, and scholarship. Rabbi Dov Linzer and Abigail Pogrebin recorded these short dialogues—ten minutes per parsha—for a podcast for Tablet Magazine, and they have now been collected and edited by Fig Tree Books LLC so that the full exploration can be found in one place.

“This unlikely, inspired pairing leads to some of the most spontaneous, moving exchanges about our tradition’s foundational text.” - Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Senior Rabbi, Central Synagogue

ABIGAIL POGREBIN is the author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew—a National Jewish Book Award finalist—and Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish. She’s written for the Atlantic, the Forward, and Tablet, and moderates conversations for the Streicker Center and the Jewish Broadcasting Service. 

RABBI DOV LINZER is the President and Rosh HaYeshiva (Rabbinic Head) of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, an Orthodox rabbinical school and Torah center, which promotes a more open and inclusive Orthodoxy. He has written for the Forward, Tablet and the New York Times, published widely, and hosted highly popular Torah podcasts.

“Each chapter also touches on hidden interpretation and insight into Divine meaning.” From the Foreword, by Mayim Bialik

PODCAST: Rabbi-Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews

Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer about It Takes Two to Torah

THE WRITER: Josh Gad and the Berkowitz brothers talk penning ‘The Writer,’ a Boston-set comic book rooted in Jewish folklore

Josh Gad teamed up with Benjamin and Max Berkowitz to pen "The Writer," a new comic book featuring art by Ariel Olivetti. DARK HORSE COMICS. As kids growing up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Ben Berkowitz would often drag his brother, Max, to the comic book store, where he’d spend hours flipping through pages of “Hellboy” and other superhero titles. On Saturday mornings, they’d nerd out over cartoons like “X-Men” or “Batman: The Animated Series.”

EXCERPT: Shabbirthday, from “Fifty-seven Fridays:

Losing Our Daughter, Finding Our Way” by Myra Sack

Twenty-four hours ago, Matt and I walked out of the hospital with Havi in our arms, having just been told that she will die. Now we’re walking back in, for the test—called the chorionic villus sampling—that will tell us whether the baby I’ve been carrying for eleven weeks will also die of Tay-Sachs disease. This is the last place I want to be. I don’t have to ask to know that Matt feels the same way.

We park in the familiar lot at 75 Francis Street and walk through the hospital’s front door. The chaos of the lobby is a blur that can’t compete with the clanging thoughts in my head. We ride the elevator to the third floor, follow the signs to the high-risk obstetrics clinic. A young woman calls us as soon as we’re settled into the waiting room and introduces herself as Melissa, our genetic counselor. She leads us into her office and nods Matt and me into soft, matching armchairs. A moment later we’re joined by Dr. Samantha Grant, my new obstetrician.

Myra Sacks, an All-American and former captain of the Dartmouth women’s soccer team, is a certified compassionate bereavement care provider and coach. She founded E-Motion, a nonprofit social support organization that incorporates movement to help people cope with grief and honor their losses. She lives with her husband, Matthew Goldstein, and their two younger children, Kaia and Ezra, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. A bench dedicated in memory of their late daughter Havi overlooks Burnham Field on campus.

JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES:

The first female rabbi was not who you'd expect

When I was a pre­teen girl, I had a secret dream of becom­ing a rab­bi. I loved Jew­ish texts. I loved teach­ing and help­ing peo­ple. But grow­ing up in the Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty, I almost nev­er saw a leader who was a woman. And even when I did, she nev­er looked like me or my Iraqi family.



When I looked in the mir­ror, it was the dark curls, dark skin, and dark eyes of Iraq that I saw. The few female rab­bis I knew of were Ashke­nazi women in the Reform, Recon­struc­tion­ist, or Con­ser­v­a­tive move­ments. I thought: Maybe being a rab­bi is some­thing they can do. But me, an Ortho­dox Mizrahi girl? It’s just not possible.

POEM: April, 2024, by Harriet Shenkman

This piece is part of the JBC's Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th. It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

Har­ri­et Shenkman was the Poet-in-Res­i­dence at the JCC of Mid Westch­ester. She earned a Ph.D. from Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and is a pro­fes­sor emeri­ta at City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York. Her new poet­ry col­lec­tion, Won­der Wheel, is avail­able from Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

BOOK CHAPTER: Did you have the life you wanted?

by Andrea Simon

Did You Have the Life You Wanted? spans the generations from 1968 to 2018, highlighting the late 1960s to 1970s when diverse female friends confront the thwarted dreams and gender stereotypes of the nascent feminist movement. As a young woman, writer and resident of Greenwich Village, Anita Rappaport grapples with profound personal and societal pressures. As she ages, Anita asks herself and her friends the profound question: “Did you have the life you wanted?” with often surprising and heartbreaking responses.

Andrea Simon is a published author of three award-winning books on Jewish themes: Bashert: A Granddaughter's Holocaust Quest, a memoir/history, republished in paperback; Esfir Is Alive, a historical novel; and Floating in the Neversink, a novel-in-stories. She is also the editor and contributor to a new anthology Here's the Story … Nine Women Write Their Lives. Her website is: www.andreasimon.net.