Temple B’nai Abraham Adult Learning- Book Group, led by Rabbi Clifford M. Kulwin.

Temple B’nai Abraham Adult Learning- Book Group, led by Rabbi Clifford M. Kulwin.  Book group participants are asked to read at least one. All are fairly quick reads.

Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman
Feldman describes growing up among the Satmar Hasidism, one of the most insular sects within the entire spectrum of Orthodoxy. From the beginning, she has doubts about belonging, and these only grow as she grows, marries and has a child. An insider's story from a world that few outsiders ever visit.

 I am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits
In the shadow of the Holocaust, Zalman Stern, a leader in the Parisian Satmar community, raises his own daughter Atara along with the orphan Mila.  Though growing up under the same roof, the girls take separate paths.  Mila obediently follows the rigorous education and life of her community, while Atara bristles and questions and protests the suffocation she feels.  The plot both grips and surprises.  Markovitz grew up in the insular world of the Satmar, and it shows in her descriptions of people and places and the moods she evokes.

Hush by Eishes Chayil
The pseudonymous Eishes Chayil (Hebrew for a woman of valor) writes of the Brooklyn Hasidic community in which she grew up.  As the book jacket describes, young Gittel “witnesses an unspeakable act of violence against her best friend…an act that goes against everything she has been taught in Judaism.”  She carries this memory with her, the conflict between the values she has been taught and the conspiracy of silence she witnesses causing her more and more to question this place where she always felt home.  Chayil reveals both joys and horrors in a community that attempts to separate itself from the world.

When:    Thursday, July 12, 2012, 7:30 PM

Where: Temple B’nai Abraham 300 E. Northfield Road Livingston

All are welcome to attend. Please RSVP tbainfo@tbanj.org or call 973-994-2290. www.tbanj.org