Etrog: How a Chi­nese Fruit Became a Jew­ish Sym­bol by David Z. Moster

“Through a mix­ture of arche­ol­o­gy, bib­li­cal inter­pre­ta­tion, and com­par­a­tive reli­gion, along­side some good old-fash­ioned sleuthing, Moster traces the fruit’s roots from Yun­nan in Chi­na, through India, Per­sia, and even­tu­al­ly, the land of Israel.” ~Stu­art Halpern

Unfin­ished Acts of Wild Cre­ation by Sarah Yahm

“Book­end­ed by mor­tal­i­ty and renew­al, the sto­ry spans forty years as it traces one fam­i­ly’s bat­tle with an unnamed, incur­able hered­i­tary dis­ease — with ample neu­ro­sis and dark laughs along the way.” ~Sara Lippmann

Plant­i­ng Seeds of the Divine: Torah Com­men­taries to Cul­ti­vate Your Spir­i­tu­al Prac­tice by Yisc­ah Smith

“Yisc­ah Smith’s focus on the inter­nal expe­ri­ence of the Divine hon­ors her great teacher and car­ries for­ward his lega­cy. By offer­ing read­ers a prac­ti­cal and pow­er­ful path­way to cul­ti­vate the Divine spark with­in, Smith cre­ates a rich lega­cy of her own.” ~Diane Gottlieb

Songs for the Bro­ken­heart­ed: A Nov­el by Ayelet Tsabari

“Songs for the Bro­ken­heart­ed is immer­sive, dis­tin­guished by sharp and agile prose, a remark­able cast of ful­ly real­ized char­ac­ters, and spell­bind­ing sto­ry­telling. And when it comes to bear­ing wit­ness to the vibrant his­to­ry and cul­ture of gen­er­a­tions of Israel’s mar­gin­al­ized groups, the nov­el is an unpar­al­leled tri­umph.” ~Ranen Omer-Sherman

Kapus­ta: Veg­­etable-For­ward Recipes from East­ern Europe by Alis­sa Timoshkina

“Be pre­pared to fall in love with dill and sour cream. This is the advice I shared with my fiancée when I start­ed to cook my way through Alis­sa Timoshkina’s Kapus­ta: Veg­­etable-For­ward Recipes from East­ern Europe… In the end, we were both deeply grate­ful to Tim­o­shk­i­na for illu­mi­nat­ing an old world of foods and food­ways for a glob­al audi­ence.” ~Avery Robinson

I’ll Be Right Here by Amy Bloom

“Amy Bloom’s prose is at once sim­ple and lyri­cal, and she grounds her char­ac­ters in a rich his­tor­i­cal con­text with a light­ness of touch that hides a prodi­gious amount of research. Above all, Bloom man­ages to take on big themes in a com­pact pack­age.” ~Mar­tin Green

To For­ev­er Inhab­it this Earth: An Eth­ic of Enough­ness by Nina Beth Cardin

“For over two decades Rab­bi Nina Beth Cardin has been a major leader in the Jew­ish Envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Her new book, To For­ev­er Inhab­it This Earth, is a cap­stone on her vision­ary focus on the see­ing the issues of cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty through a unique­ly Jew­ish lens.” ~Josh Hanft

Ashke­nazi Herbal­ism: Redis­cov­er­ing the Herbal Tra­di­tions of East­ern Euro­pean Jews by Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel

“Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel add a new dimen­sion to our pic­ture of every­day life in the Pale of Set­tle­ment with a high­ly read­able por­tray­al of folk heal­ers, herbs, and med­i­c­i­nal prac­tices. Ashke­nazi Herbal­ism offers not only the first botan­i­cal descrip­tion of Jew­ish plant and herb use in East­ern Europe from the eigh­teenth into the ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­­tu­ry, but also so much more.” ~Sharon Elswit

The His­to­ry of Jerusalem: An Illus­trat­ed Sto­ry of 4,000 Years by Vin­cent Lemire and illus­trat­ed by Christophe Gaultier

“The His­to­ry of Jerusalem is nar­rat­ed by a tree on the city’s famous Mount of Olives. Call­ing them­selves​‘Zeitoun’ or​‘Olivia,’ they are an eye­wit­ness to the city’s vicis­si­tudes. The book’s ear­ly sec­tions inte­grate recent archae­o­log­i­cal dis­cov­er­ies (such as the 2012 find of an Iron Age poly­the­is­tic tem­ple in Jerusalem’s out­skirts) with extant tex­tu­al sources.” ~Bri­an Hillman