A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika―“song” in Ladino―follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way―a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arra...
Jul 08, 2025•57 min
When Hazel Blum’s father gets a tenured job at a prestigious college, she and her family relocate from Brooklyn to a middle-of-nowhere college town in Maine. With her mother, Claire, a clothing designer, and her father, Gus, an American Studies professor, Hazel and her eleven-year-old brother, Wolf, spend the summer at the town pool, where they acclimate to their new lives and connect with the town’s sprawling community. That is, until a dramatic fallout on the very first day of her senior year ...
Jun 24, 2025•45 min
Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant. Blending elements of true crime with settings that evoke Elena Ferrante, Laura follows her mother’s trajectory as she ventu...
Jun 10, 2025•49 min
Hi everyone! If you’re new here, welcome! At The Five Books, we’re all about connecting through stories. What role do books play in shaping who we are? Which beloved books do you share with your favorite author? What’s the next great read that might shift your worldview? Stick around and we’ll have your summer reading pile stocked in no time. In case you missed it, we’re moving to an every-other-week publishing schedule! That means no more long breaks between seasons – you’ll now be able to disc...
Jun 03, 2025•1 min
In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society? Sharon Brous—a leading American rabbi—makes the case that the spiritual work of our time, as instinctual as it is counter-cultural, is to find our way to one other in celebration, in sorrow, and in solidarity. To show up for each other in moments of joy and pain, vulnerability and possibility, to invest in relationships of shared purpose and build communities...
May 27, 2025•1 hr 4 min
“Show me what scares you, and I’ll show you your soul.” In American Scary, noted cultural historian Jeremy Dauber draws a captivating through line that ties historical influences ranging from the Salem witch trials and enslaved-person narratives directly to the body of work we associate with horror today: from the taut, terrifying stories of Edgar Allan Poe to the grisly, lingering films of Jordan Peele. Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American Studies at Columbia Universit...
May 20, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 10
The long-awaited follow-up to the Reese’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestselling global phenomenon The Light We Lost: a thrilling love story about the roles fate and choice play in shaping a life. It’s been nearly ten years since Gabe’s been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her. Lucy’s journey to unco...
May 13, 2025•48 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob’s whole world is his open-minded mother, Leah. But Jacob’s prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream. Fagin the Thie...
May 06, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 8
What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters. Whether she’s testing the fragile borders of fidelity, embracing the taboo power of female friendship, escaping her family for the solitude of the mountains, grappling with what to do with her frozen embryos, or letting go ...
Apr 29, 2025•51 min
To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father's gone, his mother is struggling with mental health issues, and he's now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn't matter at all, like he's nothing. So when a kid at school actually tells him he's nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker pulls some strings and gets him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to...
Apr 22, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were thrust into the spotlight as The Griffin Sisters, a pop duo that defined the aughts. Together, they skyrocketed to the top, gracing MTV, SNL, and the cover of Rolling Stone. Cassie, a musical genius who never felt at ease in her own skin, preferred to stay in the shadows. Zoe, full of confidence and craving fame, lived for the stage. But fame has a price, and after one turbulent year, the band abruptly broke up. Now, two decades later, the sisters couldn’t be furthe...
Apr 15, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Award-winning author Dara Horn is also a professor of Jewish literature. In discussing the Tevye story, she went into a deep dive, explaining each of the daughters’ marriages as a confrontation with a different political challenge to Russian Jews. I was riveted and wanted to share with you as well!
Apr 08, 2025•7 min
Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books, including the novels The World to Come, All Other Nights, and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Her latest book is the graphic novel One Little Goat. At the Passover seder, an out-of-control family cannot find their afikoman and as a result, they are trapped at a seder that cannot end. Six months in, a wisecracking talking goat shows up at their door with bad news: Thousands of years of previous seders ...
Apr 08, 2025•58 min•Season 2Ep. 4
When Georgia Hunter was fifteen years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times best seller, We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series. One Good Thing is Georgia’s second novel. In our conversation, Georgia will...
Apr 01, 2025•55 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Rob Kutner’s new irreverent book on Jewish history, The Jews: 5000 Years and Counting covers every major moment in Jewish history from Adam and Eve to Tuesday’s rerun of Seinfeld. This book will make you laugh, it might inadvertently make you learn, and it might just be a balm for our times that you didn’t know you needed (Simon & Schuster). Rob Kutner is an Emmy, Peabody, Grammy, and TCA-winning writer for late-night TV including The Daily Show and TBS’ Conan. He is also the author of the h...
Mar 25, 2025•43 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Isola is inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, and is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival. Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island. Allegra...
Mar 18, 2025•49 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Today, we’re excited to introduce you to Chutzpod, a podcast that offers frank and wide-ranging conversations on how to build a good life. Each week on Chutzpod, Rabbi Shira Stutman and co-host Hanna Rosin tackle life’s toughest questions through a Jewish lens. If you’ve ever wondered whether to forgive a friend who won’t apologize, felt annoyed by service dogs on your flight, or pondered how to heal our broken world, this podcast is for you. In this episode, Shira and Hanna delve into listener-...
Feb 25, 2025•40 min
We just finished our very first season of The Five Books! While we're preparing Season 2, we'd love to hear what you thought of our show. You can email us at team@fivebookspod.org. We will be back on March 18 with some incredible authors for Season Two like Allegra Goodman, Georgia Hunter, Gayle Forman and more. Thank you for listening, sharing with your friends and loved ones, and for being a part of this incredible community of Jewish Book readers.
Feb 20, 2025•1 min•Season 1Ep. 13
We Would Never is a riveting literary page-turner that maps the extremes to which a family will go in order to protect their own. No one appears more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—has always tried to do what is expected of her and is regarded as the family peacemaker. But is anyone, including Hailey, who she has always seemed to be...
Feb 11, 2025•50 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head-on. Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past wi...
Feb 04, 2025•44 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Olive Days is a novel about Rina Kirsch, a young mother and Modern Orthodox Jew in Los Angeles. But a contradiction burns at her center: Rina is an atheist. She is also stymied in her life and marriage. Hoping to reinvigorate their relationship, Rina’s husband convinces her to partake in a night of wife swapping with other Orthodox couples. Rather than preserve her marriage, however, the swap plunges Rina down a heady path that begins with a rekindled passion for painting and culminates in an in...
Jan 28, 2025•44 min•Season 1Ep. 10
After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong. The Jacobson children reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when each sibling is facing drama in their own life. When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters, Laura and Sophie, go in on ticke...
Jan 21, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 9
By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost her mother to breast cancer and her father to colon cancer. A simple blood test confirmed she carried the BRCA1 gene—which put her at high risk of developing cancer herself. Determined to break the cycle of early death in her family, Gila decides to undergo an elective double mastectomy. This memoir follows her journey as she becomes a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, grows up, falls in love, an...
Jan 14, 2025•45 min•Season 1Ep. 8
The Trade Off is the story of a brilliant and ambitious young woman striving to find her place amid the promise and tumult of 1920s Wall Street. Bea Abramovitz has a gift for math and numbers, and for finding patterns within the stock market. But in the 1920s, in a Lower East Side tenement, opportunities for (Jewish) women on Wall Street don't just come knocking. It's easier for her golden-boy twin brother, Jake, who longs to reclaim all their parents lost after fleeing the pogroms in Russia to ...
Jan 07, 2025•43 min•Season 1Ep. 7
The New Jewish Canon is both text and textbook, a rich collection of major Jewish ideas from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. With over eighty excerpts from key primary source texts and insightful corresponding essays by leading scholars, on topics of history and memory, Jewish politics and the public square, religion and religiosity, and identities and communities, The New Jewish Canon promises to start conversations from the seminar room to the dinner table. (Academic Studies...
Dec 31, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 6
On Being Jewish Now is an intimate and hopeful collection of 75 meaningful, smart, funny, sad, emotional, and inspiring essays from today’s authors and advocates about what it means to be Jewish, how life has changed since the attacks on October 7th, 2023, and the unique culture that brings this group together. Contributors include Mark Feuerstein, Jill Zarin, Steve Leder, Joanna Rakoff, Amy Ephron, Lisa Barr, Annabelle Gurwitch, Daphne Merkin, Bradley Tusk, Sharon Brous, Jenny Mollen, Nicola Kr...
Dec 24, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream reveals the complex life and work of Henrietta Szold, renowned as the founder of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. She later moved to Mandate Palestine to help shape education, health, and social services there. The pinnacle of her career came in her seventies, when she took on the task of directing the Youth Aliyah program, which rescued thousands of young people from the Nazis and resettled them in Palestine. Using Szold’s co...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In Magical Meet Cute, Faye Kaplan is definitely happy alone. That is, until she finds her town papered with anti-Semitic flyers. Desperate for comfort, Faye drunkenly turns to her pottery. A golem protector is just what her town needs…and adding details to make him her ideal man can’t hurt, right? When a mysterious stranger turns up the next day, Greg seems too good to be true, causing Faye to wonder if his appearance might be anything but a coincidence. (Mira) Jean started her career in televis...
Dec 10, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 3
It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, The Safekeep is “a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires” (The Guardian). ...
Dec 03, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Benjamin Resnick’s debut novel, Next Stop, is a work of speculative fiction that explores the precariousness of Jewish American life through the lens of one family. After a black hole consumes the State of Israel, similar strange events occur in cities around the world, ushering in a time of chaos as well as miracles. (Simon and Schuster) Benjamin Resnick is the rabbi of the Pelham Jewish Center in New York. Our wide ranging and thought-provoking conversation touches on the recurring appearance ...
Dec 03, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 1
