Book Discussion group

The Book Discussion group is currently dormant
Below are discussions held in the past

The Illuminated Soul by Aryeh Stollman
Drawing on such diverse sources as the anatomy of the vertebrate brain, the Bible and Jewish legends, Japanese pictography and literature, and the ancient languages of the Near East, The Illuminated Soul is an unforgettable novel about the transforming power of beauty and the attendant pains of memory and desire.

L'Olam and the White Shell Woman by Joanne Greenberg
A Jewish college student working as a waitress in the southwest interacts with her Navaho co-workers

"A Good Deal" by Rosellen Brown
A father's revelation of his infidelity forces his son to reevaluate their relationship and his own memories of the past. Both short stories can be found in America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers, edited by Joyce Antler

Intuition by Allegra Goodman
An intricate mystery and a rich human drama set in the high-stakes atmosphere of a prestigious research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Goodman explores the intricate mixture of workplace intrigue, scientific ardor, and the moral consequences of a rush to judgment.

Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
Winner of the 1960 National Book Award, this story acquaints readers with the world of American Jews in the 1950s.  Roth brings wit and insight into the problems accompanying assimilation.

"The Girl Who Went Right" by Edna Ferber and "Old Stock" by Hortense Clisher
both short stories can be found in America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers, edited by Joyce Antler
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

MY NAME IS ASHER LEV Discussion Guide

1. How did Asher’s mother feel about his art? In what ways did she support him?

2. Why did “the gift” leave Asher for a period and what triggered its return? How did that experience affect him?

3. Why was Asher so vehement in his refusal to go to Europe?

4. What role does the mythic ancestor play in Asher’s life? How did his understanding of the mythic ancestor inform his art?

5. When Jacob Kahn takes ill, he’s “indulging” in his illness. How is it an indulgence? Who is choosing to describe it that way? How is it like Asher’s mother’s illness?

6. How did Asher’s early knowledge of the horrors of the world, primarily through his father’s work to save Russian Jews, affect Asher? What connection is there between Asher’s ability to empathize deeply with Yudel Krinsky and Asher’s artistic gift?

7. How do you feel about the Brooklyn Crucifixions?

8. Chaim Potok says that there are no Jewish motifs in Western Art. What does it mean that Judaism is an anti-iconographic tradition?

9. How does My Name Is Asher Lev illustrate Reconstructionist ideas?

Night by Elie Wiesel

The following is a Reader's Guide provided by Hill and Wang, the publisher of the latest edition of Night. http://www.nightthebook.com/readersguide.htm

The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick
Reading Questions for the Shawl are available at http://www.uky.edu/~lbarr2/eng234spring06_files/Page1498.htm

These questions were written by Laura Barrio-Vilar of the University of Kentucky for her course "Twentieth-Century American Women Writers."

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska
BREAD GIVERS Discussion Guide

1. Hester Street is a real street in the Lower East Side of New York. How did Yezierska’s description of the neighborhood compare with other impressions that you have of the Lower East Side in its heyday? What are the sources of your other impressions?

2. Many reviewers have noted Yezierska’s Yiddish-inflected prose? How did that style affect your reading of the book?

3. What does the title Bread Givers mean?

4. In her introduction to the Bread Givers, Alice Kessler Harris writes, "[Yezierska] saw her rebellion against her father as an attempt to be like him: to search for a vocation as strong as his." In what ways was Sara Smolinsky aware of her desire to be like her father even while she distanced herself from him?

5. Describe each of the sister’s marriages. Did their married lives match their childhood roles within the family? How did their marriages compare to that of their parents? Do you think their lives would have been better had they been allowed to choose their husbands?

6. The dean at Sara’s college told her that her place is with the pioneers. "All pioneers have to get hard to survive." In what ways was Sara hard? Do you think pioneer is a fitting description? Contrast Sara’s hard edges with those of her sisters and mother.

7. When Sara graduated from college, she had what she called her "honeymoon with herself." When she constructs this new "beautiful aloneness," how is she achieving long-held dreams?

8. What did Sara give up as she worked to integrate herself into American society?

9. Some critics have described Yezierska’s works as overly autobiographical. Did you assume that the work was autobiographical? Does that distract from recognizing the ways in which she crafted the story?

10. In what ways does the story of the Bread Givers remind you of your own family’s experiences? The book ends with, "But I felt the shadow still there, over me. It wasn’t just my father, but the generations who made my father whose weight was still upon me." What is your relationship to that shadow?