Bernard Revel: Builder of American Jewish Orthodoxy, by Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff (OU Press, Yeshiva University Press) is the incredible story of how one man – Rabbi Dr. Bernard (Dov) Revel z’l built Torah in America. “It was the year 1891.  R’ Issac Elchanan Spektor, the illustrious…

Rav Noach Weinberg – Torah Revolutionary, by Yonoson Rosenblum (Mosaica Press), released in 2020, is the all-encompassing biography of R’ Noach Weinberg zt’l, founder and Rosh Yeshiva of Aish Ha’Torah. In this fascinating, thoroughly researched, all-encompassing, honest, and enlightening biography, we learn of the challenges…

Israel, A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, by Daniel Gordis is an absolute must read.  The story of a nation, and land, reborn, begins in Europe in the 1800’s, with the early Zionist movement founders and leaders.  Israel takes us from those early days…

Like Dreamers, by Yossi Klein Halevi, is described in the subtitle as “The story of the Israeli paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem and divided a nation.” When I finished the book, I remarked to my husband that “this is one of the greatest books I have…

Shadow Strike, by Yaakov Katz (2019, St. Martin’s Press), is the riveting, fascinating, newly-released must-read account of the 2007 bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor by Israel.  Under the cover of total secrecy, and unknown to the world, Syria had almost achieved a fully functioning…

The Escape Artists, by Neal Bascomb, is the fascinating story of British POW’s imprisoned in German camps during WWI.  Quoting from the back cover of the book, “In the trenches and flak-filled skies of World War I, soldiers and pilots might avoid death only to…

This fascinating and masterful work, The Rabbi & The Nuns, by R’ Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, documents life lessons learned in the twenty years that R’ Dr. Twerski spent as the director of the psychiatric department at St. Francis General Hospital in Pittsburgh, runs by…

This wonderful (English) sefer (book), Sparkling Speech (Israel Bookshop), authored by R’ Elysha Sandler of Far Rockaway, NY, is an important compilation of many clearly elucidated, profound, and impactful insights on the topic of sanctity and purity of speech.  The sefer is easy to read…

A Tzaddik in Our Time, by Simcha Raz (Feldheim), is the story of the saintly, pious, selfless, compassionate, angelic rabbi of Jerusalem, R’ Aryeh Levin (1885-1969).  R’ Aryeh Levin is most famously known as the “Father of the Prisoners,” for the support, camaraderie, prayers and…

Faith Amid the Flames, The Story of Reb Yosef Friedenson, by R’ Yosef C. Golding (Artscroll) is the just published story of the wartime experiences of Yosef Friedenson (1922-2013) z’l.  Friedenson survived the horrors of the Holocaust, along with his wife Gittel (Zylberman) a’h –…

The Eve of Destruction, by Howard Blum, is the riveting, tragic, shocking and detailed story of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  With first-time declassified information and documents available to the author, Blum takes us on a heart-stopping journey to the months and weeks leading up…

By Faith Alone: The Story of Rabbi Yehuda Amital, by Elyashiv Reichner, is the biography of R’ Yehuda Amital zt’l (1924 – 2010).  R’ Amital was raised in pre-Holocaust Hungary, and in his youth, he was immersed in yeshiva study.  At the age of 19,…

Striking Back (2005), by Aaron J. Klein, begins with a detailed account of the horrific, tragic, and shocking massacre of the Israeli athletes, partaking in the 1972 Munich Olympics.  The book then moves on to document the Israeli response to the massacre, including Mossad activity,…

The Vale of Tears is the Holocaust memoir of R’ Pinchas Hirschprung.  Unlike almost all other Holocaust memoirs, The Vale of Tears, was written in 1944, while the war still raged in Europe, and R’ Hirschprung did not yet know the fate of his family…

Rebbe, by Joseph Telushkin, is the fascinating, detailed, inspiring, enlightening, larger-than-life story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R’ Menachem Mendel Schneerson zt’l and the Chabad movement he loved and led.  Admittedly, I did not know very much about Chabad until I read this book, and I…

The Sun Does Shine, by Anthony Ray Hinton with Lara Love Hardin, is the story of Anthony Ray Hinton, a poor black man living in racially-charged Alabama.  In 1985, Hinton was wrongly arrested, accused and convicted for a crime which he did not commit.  He…

Clara’s War: One Girls’ Story of Survival, by Clara Kramer, is the riveting, heart-wrenching, triumphant, simply indescribable story of one young girl and her family during the hellish Holocaust years.  A Volksdeutsch (ethnically German family) living in Poland – Mr. Beck, his wife Julia and…

The Jews of the Titanic, by Eli Moskowitz, is a newly released (2018) book on a terrible and tragic disaster that has captivated minds for over one hundred years.  Thoroughly researched and documented, engaging and page-turning, as well as easy to read, this book sheds…

This masterful, in depth, riveting book, Rav Belsky, by R’ Shimon Finkelman (Artscroll), gives us but glimpse into an adam gadol, who was larger than life in all that he did.  While a life such as Rav Belsky’s cannot be contained within the pages of…

Helga’s Diary, by Helga Weiss, is the diary of one teenage Jewish girl who was interred in the Terezin ghetto along with her mother and father during the Holocaust. Helga’s diary documents the experiences of life in Terezin, as well as her subsequent deportation from…

Forever My Jerusalem, by Puah Shteiner (Feldheim, 1987), is the dramatic, riveting, powerful, tragic, timeless-yet-modern story of the siege of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948, the subsequent fall of the Jewish Quarter to the Jordanian army, and the terrifying…

The Bielski Brothers, by Peter Duffy, is one of the most riveting, almost unbelievable, and simply incredible books, which documents what is, perhaps, a little-known story of heroism and defiance during the terrible Holocaust years. Deep in the forests of Russia, three Bielski brothers, whose…

From the Wilderness and Lebanon, by Asael Lubotzky, is the powerful, heartrending, inspiring and courageous story of one Israeli soldier and the men under his command.  Asael takes us from battle in the Gaza Strip to battle in Lebanon in 2006, during what became known…

In the spring of 1945, a Russian doctor with the liberating Red Army found a diary in the ruins of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  It was not until 2008 (!) that the then Holocaust Center of Northern California was contacted about the diary… “It was…

Angels in the Sky, by Robert Gandt, is the fascinating, moving, compelling, astonishing, triumphant story of a band of volunteer air men from other countries (Britain, Canada, USA) – mostly Jewish, but some not – who saved the newly formed, and newly attacked State of…

A Boy Named 68818, by Israel Starck (as told to Miriam [Starck] Miller), is the story of young Srulek Storch (renamed Israel Starck when he came to America after the war), and his experiences during the Holocaust years.  The story begins with Srulek’s idyllic and…

In this fascinating, thoroughly researched, and enlightening book, When General Grant Expelled the Jews, Jonathan D. Sarna, takes us back in time to the American Civil War (1861-1865) when tensions ran high in a divided, war-ridden, America.  It was into this turbulent environment that General…

With Pesach upon us, I share with you one of my favorite Haggadot.  The Heritage Haggadah (Feldheim Publishers), with commentary and insights by R’ Eliyahu KiTov (b.1912, Poland – d.1976, J’lem), is a beautiful Haggadah.  With its clear font and easy to follow text, it…

Hunting Eichmann, by Neil Bascomb, is the story of the notorious Nazi, war criminal, despicable beyond all words, infamous Adolf Eichmann, the implementor of the “Final Solution.”  In the chaos of post war Europe, Eichmann manages to evades capture time and again.  Eventually settling in Argentina,…

In this masterful biography, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, written by Daniel Gordis, we journey with Menachem Begin from his hometown and childhood in Brisk, to his life in the Holy Land, to his death and burial – at the age of 79…

The Boy On The Wooden Box, by Leon Leyson, is the memoir of Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon), who survived – against all odds – the Holocaust.  He was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland, and he and his family were forced…

In this new book, Terror and Emunah in Har Nof (Artscroll), Mrs. Risa Rotman bravely, beautifully and openly takes us with on her journey of the turbulent year of her husband’s coma post the Har Nof massacre (Cheshvan 5775/Nov.2014).  Unlike the other five victims of…

Lalechka, by Amira Keidar, is another must-read.  This non-fiction book tells the story of one Jewish family – and their young daughter, Rachel – who were trapped in the town of Shedlitz, Poland, and later in the town’s ghetto, during the early years of the…

Sacred Treasure – The Cairo Genizah, by R’ Mark Glickman is a compelling, fascinating, riveting, page-turning, must-read.  The book takes us back in time, to the end of the 19th century, and the discovery of the Cairo Genizah.  With the discovery of the genizah, one…

Living On, by R’ Daniel Y. Travis, is a compilation of hespedim (eulogies) and memories of the kedoshei elyon – the holy victims of the Har Nof massacre, whose third yarzheit was this past Tuesday, 25 Cheshvan 5778.  The memories, vignettes and anecdotes of these…

Gertruda’s Oath tells the story of a wealthy Jewish family – Jacob, Lydia and their young son, Michael – and their Polish Catholic nanny, Gertruda, caught in the death web of Nazi occupied Europe. The book, filled with page turning suspense, takes us on a…

This fascinating book, written by Seth M. Siegel, sheds light onto the very miracle of Israel’s continued survival in what was once a desert wasteland.  From an arid, dry, and sandy land, Israel has, quite literally, made the desert bloom.  With innovation, science, hard work,…

As we approach the Yomim Noraim, with the focus of the days on our tefillos and bakashos, as we daven for Divine mercy for us, the nation, and our Land, we turn to our machzorim, allowing the words – along with the passion of our…

In 1939, as terrified Jews trapped inside of Nazi Germany tried desperately to flee their country, a Jewish American couple journeyed into the lions den, in a quest to save Jewish children, and bring them to America – to safe shores.  This little-known story of…

The story of Irena Sendler – a voice of humanity, reason, and immense courage, in a time when the world was filled with evil and hate – is beautifully, powerfully, poignantly and movingly documented in this outstanding book.  Irena, a young Polish woman, led the…

This short and riveting book details the selflessness, bravery, courage and heroism of Aharon Karov, who headed into battle shortly after he married his beloved.  From chuppah to warfare, this young chattan (bride-groom) sustained serious and critical injuries on the battlefield. This is his story…

The moving, courageous, passionate, heart-wrenching, and brave story of Moshe Blum a’h, and his family.  Moshe was critically injured in a field accident, while serving in the Israeli Air Force, and he lived for 13 years post injury.  This is his story of triumph, survival,…