16 Remarkable Stories by Jewish Authors

In this breathtaking novel, a long-lost book connects two lives—one of a writer and the other of a girl, named after a character in his book, on a quest to find her namesake and save her family. Nicole Krauss beautifully intertwines these two stories, bringing them to a magnificent climax and linking old and young.

This vibrant novel begins in Yemen in 1920, as Adela Damari’s parents desperately seek a future husband for their daughter. A tale of love, loss, betrayal, and forgiveness, this family portrait interweaves the traditions of the Yemenite Jews with the history of the Holocaust and Israel.

Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against Roman armies on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. The source for the recent CBS miniseries, The Dovekeepers is a beautifully written and captivating tale of four women whose lives intersect in the desperate days of the siege.

A chance meeting between two mythical beings leads to an unlikely friendship and journey through cultures in New York City at the start of the twentieth century. Helene Wecker’s debut novel is an imaginative mixture of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, crafting an imaginative and remarkable story.

Aron and a handful of children in the Warsaw ghetto risk their lives to smuggle and trade contraband in order to keep their families alive. This child’s-eye view of one of history’s darkest periods is mesmerizing and heartbreaking with a comic touch.

This dazzling, multigenerational saga follows a family of Soviet Jews who escape to freedom through a crack in the Iron Curtain in the summer of 1978. Their six-month wait in the way station of Rome, filled with dislocation, nostalgia, and the promise of a new life, paints an intimate portrait of a turbulent era.

In 1945, American soldiers discover a train in Salzburg filled with gold watches, wedding rings, Shabbat candlesticks, and more. Decades later, amid the shadowy world of art dealers who profit off the sins of previous generations, the lieutenant charged with guarding the treasure gives a necklace to his granddaughter and asks her to return it to the rightful owner.

In this provocative and sometimes humorous novel, a failed journalist is asked by his grandfather to forge Holocaust-restitution claims for old Russian Jews in Brooklyn, New York. This charming debut is a moving story about the lasting importance of family, honor, and justice.

This ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript, from fifteenth-century Spain to war-torn Bosnia. It falls to a renowned book conservator and a young librarian who risked his live to save it to discover its secrets and piece together the mystery of its miraculous survival.

A rich and harrowing memoir of a young woman’s escape from the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism in Brooklyn in order to give herself and her newborn son a brighter future.

Meet the Cohens of Buffalo, New York, whose eldest sister Golide has just disappeared without a trace. Told through the shifting perspectives of the four adult Cohen siblings, from the Great Depression through World War II, this novel examines the love, grief, and desires that ultimately bind one family together.

An exuberant Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that opens in the New York City of 1939. While World War II rages in Europe, a young escape artist and his cousin dive into the American comic book craze, traveling deep into the heart of Manhattan and American ambition.

Leon Uris beautifully portrays the founding of Israel through the story of an American nurse and an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a heartbreaking era. This novel remains one of our very favorites, thirty years after its publication.

A powerful debut about three people who overcome the tragedies of the past to reconnect with one another and the world around them. This novel of love and redemption proves the pain of the untold story is far greater than even the most difficult truth.

Having grown up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust, Daniel Mendelsohn set out to discover his relatives’ fates. Spanning across dozens of countries on four continents, this riveting memoir follows a journey that finally leads back to the small Ukrainian town where his family’s story began.

Off the Shelf Editor's Pick:

In her incredible, unforgettable memoir, Dr. Edith Eger chronicles her harrowing experience at Auschwitz at just 16, her path to healing in the years since, and the stories of others she's been able to help along the way. This National Jewish Book Award winner has been rightfully praised for the inspiration that it offers to anyone who's struggling and in need of comfort and hope.