{"id":7291,"date":"2025-05-01T05:14:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T05:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/?p=7291"},"modified":"2025-05-01T17:11:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T17:11:30","slug":"jewish-american-heritage-month-identity-heritage-and-culture-through-popular-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/2025\/05\/01\/jewish-american-heritage-month-identity-heritage-and-culture-through-popular-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish American Heritage Month &#8211; Jewish American Identity, Heritage and Culture Through Popular Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<h1>Jewish American Heritage Month 2025: Jewish American Identity, Heritage and Culture Through Popular Fiction<\/h1>\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7308\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/Untitled-design14-300x200.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/Untitled-design14-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/Untitled-design14-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/Untitled-design14.png 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<h2>\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n<p>Post, Theme, and Recommended Reading Titles Curated by Lynn Lampert, Jewish Studies Librarian\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<h2>What is Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM)?<\/h2>\r\n<p>Following a series of annual presidential proclamations designating a week in April or May of each year as Jewish Heritage Week, President George W. Bush proclaimed May as Jewish American Heritage Month on\u202fApril 20, 2006. Since 2007, Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump have all issued proclamations for Jewish American Heritage Month, which celebrate Jewish Americans and encourage all Americans to learn more about Jewish heritage and contributions to the United States.<\/p>\r\n<h1>Theme: Jewish American Identity, Heritage and Culture Through Popular Fiction<\/h1>\r\n<p>Fictional works that tell the stories of Jewish Americans have helped both Jewish Americans and non-Jewish Americans learn more about Jewish identity, culture, religion and heritage. As Rachel Gordon\u2019s recent awarding winning book, <a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991012757301202914\">Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American<\/a> (Oxford Press, 2024) points out, &#8220;It seems so obvious today to identify Judaism as a &#8220;religion&#8221; that it comes as a surprise to learn that it is only since the Second World War that Judaism has been widely considered a &#8220;religion&#8221; by most non-Jewish Americans. The consensus among American Christians before then was that Judaism was a race\u201d. This changed with the war and, as Gordon argues, through the growth of popular fiction that examined Jewish American life. For this May 2025 Jewish American Heritage Month, the following titles from the CSUN University Library collection are recommended for readers wanting to learn more about how both very recent and older popular works of fiction have helped people, both non-Jewish and Jewish, learn about the Jewish American experience. <br \/><br \/><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7294 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/postwar-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/postwar-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/postwar.jpg 264w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991012757301202914\">Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American, by Rachel Gordan<\/a>(New York: Oxford University Press, 2024)<\/p>\r\n<p>Available in print in the Gohstand Reading Room\u202f(E184.355.G6 2024)\u202f <br \/>Summary: \u201cPostwar Stories brings the cultural achievements of two strands of midcentury middlebrow literature: anti-antisemitism novels of the 1940s and Introduction to Judaism literature of the 1940s and 1950s. While middlebrow literature did not cause societal change on its own, the books and magazine articles analyzed in Postwar Stories furnished an arena for articulating and questioning explanations of postwar American Jews and Judaism. For Jewish readers, depictions of Jews in anti-antisemitism and Introduction to Judaism literature were capable of providing reassurance or harm, depending on the associations and emotions they evoked. For young people coming of age in the late 1940s, reading a popular novel about antisemitism that became an Academy Award-winning film [Gentlemen\u2019s Agreement starring Gregory Peck based on the novel written by Laura Z Hobson], or encountering a Life magazine story about Judaism could make a strong impression on their understanding of the significance of antisemitism and Judaism in American culture. Popular culture matters when studying American attitudes, because books, magazine articles, and films provide an intimacy to otherwise foreign subjects, making them personally meaningful to readers and viewers&#8221;&#8211; Provided by publisher. <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Facts:<\/strong> The novel <em>Gentleman\u2019s Agreement<\/em>, was originally published in serial form in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1946, was published by Simon &amp; Schuster, and became a runaway bestseller,\u202fselling over 1.6 million copies. It reached No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in April 1947. The CSUN University Library also has a rare copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991008337959702914\">Hobson\u2019s Gentleman\u2019s Agreement: A Novel) in Special Collections and Archives (Special Collections &amp; Archives;\u202fPS3515.O1515 G4 1947b)<\/a> <br \/><br \/><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7295 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/yiddish-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/yiddish-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/yiddish.jpg 270w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991008337959702914\">The Yiddish Policemen\u2019s Union: A Novel, by Michael Chabon<\/a> (First edition. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: Floor4;\u202fPS3553.H15 Y54 2007 <br \/><br \/>Author of the popular The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &amp; Clay, Michael Chabon\u2019s The Yiddish Policemen\u2019s Union\u202ftells the story of how, \u201cFor sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka (Alaska), a \u201ctemporary\u201d safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. In the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has committed a murder\u2014right under his\u202fnose. Out of habit, obligation, and a sense of\u202fredemption, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage. Chabon\u2019s novel is at once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption.\u202fSource: summary from BookRiot.com <br \/><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7296 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/here-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/here-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/here.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991012398808602914\">Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer<\/a> (First edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016)<br \/>Available in print. Location: Gohstand Reading Room;\u202fPS3606.O38 H47 2016 <br \/><br \/>Author of the highly popular novels <em>Everything Is Illuminated<\/em> and <em>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close<\/em> (which were both adapted into successful films), Jonathan Safran Foer\u2019s third novel, <em>Here I Am<\/em> is, \u201cA novel of diaspora, of the elasticity of its numerous possible meanings, and of the pain caused by both the presence and the absence of the homeland it invokes. It moves from the intimate dissection of a family that has ceased to become a home for its members to the question of what Israel means to American Jews, and what they might consider to be their duty in the face of its imperilment\u201d (Source: The Guardian). The novel artfully tells the story of a fracturing Jewish American family in a moment of crisis within their own home and within Israel. <br \/><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7297 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/bee-209x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"209\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/bee-209x300.jpg 209w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/bee.jpg 279w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991004207929702914\">Bee Season: A Novel, by Myla Goldberg<\/a> (1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 2000)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: Floor4;\u202fPS3557.O35819 B44 2000 <br \/><br \/>Summary:\u00a0 Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father&#8217;s spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness. In this altered reality, Saul inducts her into his hallowed study and lavishes upon her the attention previously reserved for Aaron, who in his displacement embarks upon a lone quest for spiritual fulfillment. When Miriam&#8217;s secret life triggers a familial explosion, it is Eliza who must order the chaos.\u202fMyla Goldberg&#8217;s\u202fkeen eye for detail brings Eliza&#8217;s journey to three-dimensional life. As she rises from classroom obscurity to the blinding lights and outsized expectations of the National Bee, Eliza&#8217;s small pains and large joys are finely wrought and deeply felt. <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Fact:<\/strong> Bee Season was adapted into a 2005 American film and the screenplay was written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (the mother of popular actor Jake Gyllenhaal). The film stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche. <br \/><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7298 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/stone-189x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"189\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/stone-189x300.jpg 189w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/stone.jpg 252w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 189px) 100vw, 189px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/discovery\/fulldisplay?context=L&amp;vid=01CALS_UNO:01CALS_UNO&amp;search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;docid=alma991000903629702914\">Stone Butch Blues: A Novel, by Leslie Feinberg <\/a>(Ithaca, New York: Firebrand Books, 1993)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: Floor4;\u202fPS3556.E427 S7 1993 <br \/>Summary: Stone\u202fButch\u202fBlues is\u202fan autobiographical novel by Leslie Feinberg that recounts the life of Jess Goldberg, a working-class butch Jewish lesbian in New York starting in the 1940s. The book is about being a lesbian in twentieth century New York, about Jess&#8217; struggle with gender non-conformity and about the working class&#8217;s fight to unionize and gain power. <a href=\"https:\/\/jwa.org\/encyclopedia\/article\/feinberg-leslie\">Leslie Feinberg<\/a>, described the book as a \u201cbridge of memory.\u201d Feinberg, who identified as an \u201canti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist,\u201d devoted hir life to revolutionary causes including pro-Palestine\u202fjustice work, antifascist and anti-KKK action, union organizing, and trans liberation. Zie was an activist in the\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.workers.org\/\">Workers World Party<\/a>\u202fand wrote several other books, including\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/books\/trans-liberation-beyond-pink-or-blue\/9780807079515?aid=309\">Trans Liberation<\/a>\u202fand\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/books\/transgender-warriors-making-history-from-joan-of-arc-to-dennis-rodman\/9780807079416\">Transgender Warriors<\/a>. At the heart of hir work was an emphasis on solidarity, radical love, and the documentation and remembrance of queer and communist histories. \u201cRecovering collective memory [how groups remember their pasts] is itself an act of struggle,\u201d Feinberg said in hir afterword to\u202fStone Butch Blues. \u201cIt allows the generational currents of the white-capped river of our movement to flow together\u2014the awesome roar of many waters.\u201d (Summary from Jewish Women\u2019s Archive: see <a href=\"https:\/\/jwa.org\/blog\/risingvoices\/leslie-feinberg-and-power-queer-jewish-memory\">\u201c Leslie Feinberg and the Power of Queer Jewish Memory\u201d<\/a>) <br \/><br \/>\u201cStone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg\u2019s 1993 first novel, is widely considered in and outside the U.S. to be a groundbreaking work about the complexities of gender. Feinberg was the first theorist to advance a Marxist concept of \u201ctransgender liberation.\u201d Sold by the hundreds of thousands of copies and also passed from hand-to-hand inside prisons, Stone Butch Blues\u202fhas been translated into Chinese, Dutch, German, Italian, Slovenian, Turkish, and Hebrew (with hir earnings from that edition going to ASWAT Palestinian Gay Women). The novel was winner of the 1994 American Library Association Stonewall Book Award and a 1994 Lambda Literary Award\u201d (Source: https:\/\/www.lesliefeinberg.net\/). <br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991009131959702914\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7299 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/moonligh-191x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/moonligh-191x300.jpg 191w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/moonligh.jpg 254w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px\" \/>Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith by Gina Barkhordar Nahai<\/a> (New York: Washington Square Press, 2000)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: Floor4;\u202fPS3552.A6713 M66 2000 <br \/><br \/>Summary: Gina Nahai (author of <em>Cry of the Peacock<\/em>, 1991) revisits Iran\u2019s Jewish community as she tells the moving if not always engrossing tale of one woman\u2019s struggle in a time of political turmoil. The saga of Roxanna begins in 1938 with her birth in Tehran\u2019s ghetto and ends in 1980s Los Angeles. It is as much the story of a family increasingly affected by outside events as it is a low-key exploration of the conflict between destiny and choice. Nahai cuts early to the past, as the now-adult Lili recalls how, as a five-year-old, she saw her mother, Roxanna, grow wings and fly away. (Other clumsy flirtations with magical realism include sunflowers that give off light, sorrow that turns into body fat, and white feathers found after dreams of flight.) Warned that she is the \u201cbad-luck one,\u201d the eight-year-old Roxanna is given away to Alexandra, an eccentric Russian refugee. After Alexandra\u2019s death, Roxanna flees the ghetto but finds herself trapped by love in a house on the \u201cAvenue of Faith.\u201d The house belongs to wealthy Teymur and his scheming wife; Roxanna marries their son Sohrab to be close to Teymur, whom she really loves. When their affair is discovered, she\u2019s kept a prisoner in the house, and in desperation runs away, leaving Lili behind. Working first as a prostitute and then as kitchen help in Turkey, Sohrab sends Lili to school in Los Angeles. Then, as the Islamic revolution begins, Roxanna\u2019s sisters flee to L.A.\u2014where Lili, still mourning her mother, is unwillingly united with them, and eventually even with Roxanna, now bloated with sorrow and regret. Lots of action, local color, and adventure, but not enough to give Roxanna\u2019s story the impact it demands.\u202f(Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/book-reviews\/gina-b-nahai\/moonlight-on-the-avenue-of-faith\/\">Kirkus Reviews<\/a>) <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Facts:<\/strong> <em>Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith<\/em>, a novel by Gina B. Nahai, won the\u202fInternational Dublin Literary Award and the Harold U. Ribalow Award.\u202fIt was also a finalist for the Orange Prize (now known as the\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Women%27s_Prize_for_Fiction#\">Women&#8217;s Prize for Fiction<\/a>).\u202fThe book was also named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times.\u202f <br \/>\u00a0<br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991005552469702914\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7300 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/days-of-awe-190x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"190\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/days-of-awe-190x300.jpg 190w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/days-of-awe.jpg 253w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 190px) 100vw, 190px\" \/>Days of Awe, by Achy Obejas<\/a> (1st ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001)<\/p>\r\n<p>Available in print. Location: Gohstand Reading Room: PS3565.B34 D39 2001 <br \/><br \/>Summary: \u201c<em>Days of Awe<\/em>, Achy Obejas\u2019s second novel and third book of fiction, centers on its Cuban American protagonist\u2019s discovery of her family\u2019s concealed Jewishness. At twenty-eight Alejandra San Jose believes both her parents to be loosely practicing Catholics. When she visits Cuba for the first time as an interpreter, ignorant of her Jewish roots, she is also dismissive and somewhat embarrassed by her Cuban heritage, [clinging to her difference from the natives, her superiority as an American woman. She \u201ccould care less about Cuba,\u201d which to her is no more or less interesting than other countries she hasn\u2019t seen yet. She flaunts her perfect American English, using body language to show her preference for the American speakers. Being Cuban, for her, is \u201can accident of timing and geography.\u201d Then she meets the Menachs, old family friends who enlarge the boundaries of the known world for her\u2014with regard not only to religion but sexuality, nationality, identity itself. The book\u2019s title and central image, Days of Awe\u2014the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in which the Almighty is deciding who will be written up in the \u201cBook of Life\u201d\u2014is the darkest period in the Jewish year, with its focus on sin and atonement. It is this sense of sin and the quest for atonement that fuels the book. Even in the United States where Judaism can be practiced for the most part without undesirable consequences, Alejandra\u2019s father won\u2019t admit to being Jewish, while in his dark basement, in tallis and tefillin, he davens, weeping. Alejandra, who could live a comfortable American life, is increasingly drawn toward Cuba with its increasing poverty and hopelessness, where, in the face of her friends\u2019 anger towards those who flee or who are free to come and go, she must continually justify herself. Summary Source: Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies via Project Muse database <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Facts<\/strong>: <em>Days of Awe<\/em> won the Lambda Literary Award in 2001 <br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991000886969702914\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7301 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/puttermeiser-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/puttermeiser-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/puttermeiser.jpg 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/>The Puttermesser Papers, by Cynthia Ozick<\/a> (1st edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)<\/p>\r\n<p>Available in print. Floor4:\u202fPS3565.Z5 P8 1997 <br \/>Summary: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST \u2022\u202fThe Puttermesser Papers\u202ffollows Ruth Puttermesser, a highly learned woman living in New York City, who creates a female golem to fulfill her yearning for a daughter and becomes mayor, only to face the unintended consequences of her fantasies. In Jewish folklore, a golem is\u202fa man-made, animated being, typically crafted from clay or mud, and brought to life through magical or mystical means and typically golems can become uncontrollable or destructive. \u202fThe novel combines elements of fantasy, historical fiction, and satire to examine how Ruth navigates her Jewish heritage, her personal experiences, and her role in modern life in America., <br \/><br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991012606304402914\">The Vixen: A Novel, by Francine <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7302 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/vixen-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/vixen-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/vixen.jpg 264w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/>Prose.<\/a> (First edition. New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2021)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: Second Floor Gohstand Reading Room: PS3566.R68 V59 2021 <br \/>Summary: Prose\u2019s novel takes place in 1953. Simon Putnam, newly hired by a distinguished publishing firm, gets his first assignment: editing a lurid bodice-ripper based on the recent trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. It is a potboiler intended to shore up the firm&#8217;s failing finances. Simon&#8217;s mother was a childhood friend of Ethel Rosenberg&#8217;s; his parents mourn Ethel&#8217;s death. Simon comes to realize that everyone is not what they seem, that everyone is keeping secrets, and that ordinary events may conceal a diabolical plot. (Source: Publisher) <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Fact<\/strong>: Author E.L Doctorow also wrote a famous novel centered on the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg through the eyes of their son titled <a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991001962599702914\">The Book of Daniel. <\/a> <br \/>Available in print in CSUN&#8217;s stored collection and in Special Collections and Archives.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-7303 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/book-e1746074208445-193x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"193\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/book-e1746074208445-193x300.jpg 193w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/book-e1746074208445.jpg 444w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 193px) 100vw, 193px\" \/>Summary: \u201cIn the silence of the library at Columbia University, where he is supposedly writing a\u202fPh.D. dissertation, Daniel composes something quite differ\u200bent\u200b. It is a\u202fconfession of his most intimate relationships\u2009\u2014\u2009with his wife, his foster parents, and his kid sister Susan, whose own radicalism so reproaches him\u200b.It is a\u202fbook of memories: riding a\u202fbus with his parents to the ill-fated Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill; watching the\u202fFBI\u202ftake his father away; appearing with Susan at rallies protesting their parents\u2019 innocence; visiting his mother and father in the Death House\u200b.It is a\u202fbook of investigation: transcribing Daniel\u2019s interviews with people who knew his parents, or who knew about them; and logging his strange researches and discoveries in the library stacks\u200b.It is a\u202fbook of judgments of everyone involved in the case\u2009\u2014\u2009lawyers, police, informers, friends, and the Isaacson family itself\u200b.It is a\u202fbook rich in characters, from elderly grand- mothers of immigrant culture, to covert radicals of the McCarthy era, to hippie marchers on the Pentagon. It is a\u202fbook that spans the quarter-century of American life since World War\u202fII. It is a\u202fbook about the nature of Left politics in this country\u2009\u2014\u2009its sacrificial rites, its peculiar cruelties, its humility, its bitterness. It is a\u202fbook about some of the beautiful and terrible feelings of childhood. It is about the nature of guilt and innocence, and about the relations of people to nations\u201d (Source: Jewish Book Council.org) <br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991000585919702914\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7304 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/enemies-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/enemies-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/enemies.jpg 270w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/>Enemies, a Love Story, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Translated by Aliza Shevrin and Elizabeth Shub.<\/a> (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location Floor4;\u202fPJ5129.S49 S5913 <br \/>Summary: Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote &#8220;Enemies, A Love Story&#8221; while living in\u202fNew York City, specifically in the Upper West Side.\u202fHe had settled there after emigrating from Poland in 1935.\u202f The novel tells the story of a Jewish refugee who escaped Hitler&#8217;s Holocaust and is living in\u202fNew York\u202fwith his second wife faces a dilemma when he discovers that his first wife is still alive. For many readers, Enemies, a Love Story was a first opportunity to see what Singer\u2014most of whose previous novels were set in the villages and cities of Eastern Europe\u2014would make of Yiddish-speaking Jews living in the postwar United States. (Summary excerpt from the Yiddish Book Center) <br \/><br \/><strong>Note<\/strong>: Translated by Aliza Shevrin and Elizabeth Shub this novel was first published in The Jewish daily forward in 1966 under the title &#8216;Sonim, di Geshichte fun a Liebe.'&#8221; <br \/><br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991012597302002914\">The Length of a String, <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7305 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/length-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/length-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/length.jpg 264w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/>by Elissa Brent Weissman<\/a>. (New York, NY: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2018)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: TCC &#8211; Display;\u202fPZ7.W448182 Le 2018 <br \/>Summary: Twelve-year-old Imani, the only black girl in Hebrew school, is preparing for her bat mitzvah and hoping to find her birthparents when she discovers the history of adoption in her own family through her great-grandma Anna&#8217;s Holocaust-era diary. &#8220;Imani is adopted, and she&#8217;s ready to search for her birth parents. But when she discovers the diary her\u202fJewish\u202fgreat-grandmother wrote chronicling her escape from Holocaust-era Europe, Imani begins to see family in a new way. Imani knows exactly what she wants as her big bat mitzvah gift: to find her birth parents. She loves her family and her\u202fJewish\u202fcommunity in Baltimore, but she has always wondered where she came from, especially since she&#8217;s black and almost everyone she knows is white. Then her mom&#8217;s grandmother&#8211;Imani&#8217;s great-grandma Anna&#8211;passes away, and Imani discovers an old journal among her books. It&#8217;s Anna&#8217;s diary from 1941, the year she was twelve and fled Nazi-occupied Luxembourg alone, sent by her parents to seek refuge in Brooklyn, New York. Anna&#8217;s diary records her journey to America and her new life with an adoptive family of her own. And as Imani reads the diary, she begins to see her family, and her place in it, in a whole new way.&#8221;&#8211;Publisher&#8217;s description.<\/p>\r\n<p><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7306 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/marjorie-201x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/marjorie-201x300.jpeg 201w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/marjorie.jpeg 234w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991003789189702914\">Marjorie Morningstar, by <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991003789189702914\">Herman <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991003789189702914\">Wouk<\/a> (Garden City, New York: Doubleday &amp; Company, Inc., 1955.) <br \/>Available in print. Location: Stored;\u202fPS3545.O98 M3 <br \/>Summary: Wouk\u2019s novel tells the story of a starry-eyed young Jewish American beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves New York to accept the job of her dreams&#8211;working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest&#8211;and the most destructive&#8211;love of her life. Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine. This unforgettable paean to youthful love and the bittersweet sorrow of a first heartbreak endures as one of\u202fHerman Wouk&#8217;s most beloved creations.&#8221; (Source: goodreads.com) <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Facts<\/strong>: Herman Wouk\u2019s <em>Marjorie Morningstar<\/em> spent at least 37 weeks on The New York Times&#8217; bestseller list, for months in the number one position. The novel was controversial among Jewish writers and religious figures as well as among secular intellectuals. The novel was later adapted into a popular film in starring Hollywood giants Gene Kelly and Natalie Wood. <br \/><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/csu-un.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CALS_UNO\/1uh4jr6\/alma991012679406002914\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7307 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/tomorrow-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/tomorrow-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/05\/tomorrow.jpg 263w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/>Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin<\/a> (First edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024)<br \/><br \/>Available in print. Location: Gohstand Reading Room;\u202fPS3626.E95 T66 2022 <br \/>Summary: Gabrielle Zevin\u2019s highly popular 2024 novel <em>Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow<\/em> is a &#8220;A modern love story about two childhood friends, Sam, raised by an actress mother in LA&#8217;s Koreatown, and Sadie, from the wealthy Jewish enclave of Beverly Hills, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives, from the New York Times best-selling author of <em>The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry<\/em>&#8220;. <br \/><br \/>\u201cThe plot revolves largely around Sam and Sadie\u2019s relationship as friends and collaborators. The growth and challenges they face as creative partners are integral to the story\u2019s wider focus on how modern relationships are shaped by identity, privilege and power dynamics. Sam, who is a biracial Jew, was raised by his Korean grandparents, and spends much of his early life in working class conditions, fighting an uphill battle after being left physically disabled by a car accident that also killed his mother. He simultaneously respects and resents Sadie for her socioeconomically privileged background and upbringing. Meanwhile, Sadie struggles to make a name for herself in the world of game design as her accomplishments are constantly undermined by her relationship with powerful men in the industry. Zevin weaves a realistic narrative of what it\u2019s like for people with overlapping social identities to thrive in a highly cutthroat environment\u201d Source (\u202fGaw, K. <a href=\"https:\/\/pacificties.org\/gabrielle-zevins-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-explores-themes-of-cultural-identity-in-game-design-industry\/\">Pacific Ties)<\/a> <br \/><br \/><strong>Fun Facts<\/strong>: This novel was recently named One of the\u202fNew York Times\u2019s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century and it spent over 44 weeks on The New York Times bestseller\u2019s list with millions of copies sold worldwide.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jewish American Heritage Month 2025: Jewish American Identity, Heritage and Culture Through Popular Fiction \u00a0 Post, Theme, and Recommended Reading Titles Curated by Lynn Lampert,&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/2025\/05\/01\/jewish-american-heritage-month-identity-heritage-and-culture-through-popular-fiction\/\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Jewish American Heritage Month &#8211; Jewish American Identity, Heritage and Culture Through Popular Fiction<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":7308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[485,8],"tags":[491,492],"class_list":["post-7291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collections","category-outreach","tag-jewish-american-heritage-month","tag-jewish-studies","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7291"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7312,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7291\/revisions\/7312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.csun.edu\/blogs\/cited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}