Photo by Miikka A. on Unsplash
The best historical fiction is utterly transportive, but it also has a universality to it — a shared thread of empathy that ties us to the past. In Jewish historical fiction, I have often found that thread not only in stories of resistance and prejudice, but also in those of passion and joy.
My forthcoming novel, The Phoenix Bride, is a love story set in seventeenth-century England about a Portuguese Jewish doctor and a young widow. It’s about grief and happiness both; and with this list, I’ve tried to uplift other works of historical fiction about Jewish people from across less common eras and backgrounds, focusing on narratives that are just as triumphant as tragic.
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kaddish (Restoration England)
The Weight of Ink is set in the same period as The Phoenix Bride, and it provides a perfect entryway into a fascinating era of Anglo-Jewish history that often goes overlooked. In the seventeenth century, the Jews were readmitted into England after centuries of exclusion. In The Weight of Ink, Kaddish interweaves the complex experiences of the nascent London Sephardi community with a perennial story about womanhood and how we connect with the past. If you’re interested in expanding your historical fiction reading beyond more commonly featured time periods, The Weight of Ink is a fantastic place to start.
True Pretenses by Rose Lerner (Regency England)
I’d be remiss not to include another romance in this list, and True Pretenses represents Regency romance at its very best: sweet, soulful, and captivating. In True Pretenses, a Jewish swindler with a heart of gold tries to engineer a marriage for his beloved brother, but things go wrong when he falls in love with the intended bride himself. The electric Ash Cohen is one of my favorite-ever romance protagonists; his scam-gone-wrong with Lydia, a sweet-natured heiress, is full of gorgeous moments, rendered in deft prose and with affecting tenderness. Ash feels at once like a romance hero and a genuine reflection of Jewish lives in the era. If you’re a Regency romance reader yearning for Jewish representation, True Pretenses is a wonderful option for you.
The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel (1940s Shanghai)
The Last Rose of Shanghai follows two extraordinary protagonists: Aiyi, the heiress to a Shanghai nightclub, and Ernest, a Jewish refugee with a talent for jazz piano. Their relationship is fraught with struggles and tragedy, but Randel balances darkness with light. She vividly depicts wartime Shanghai and the deep connection between Aiyi and Ernest, which blooms in an era that considers their love impossible. It’s a fascinating exploration of the experiences of a community often overlooked in fiction.
By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan (Fifteenth-century Spain)
By Fire, By Water primarily follows Luis de Santángel, a converso who finds himself torn between complicity and resistance during the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition. His story is interlinked with those of Jews across Spain, and the result is a marvelously complex and subtle examination of what community and faith mean in the face of prejudice. Kaplan is faithful to the dark realities of the Inquisition, but he also brings beauty and sensitivity to the narrative, with characters whose inner lives are as rich as their external conflicts. What really sings here in particular is Kaplan’s evocative prose — it brings to life both the setting and Santángel’s inner turmoil.
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (Medieval England)
This is a brutal yet fascinating murder mystery that centers female and Jewish experiences in a period when these voices were so often ignored. Our protagonist, Adelia, is a forensics expert who was raised by a Jew in Salerno. She comes to England because the Jewish community there has been accused of a series of heinous crimes — and she is determined to clear their names. Mistress of the Art of Death deals with the important legacy of the blood libel, refusing to shy away from the cruelty and prejudices of the era. At the same time, Adelia is a loveable protagonist whose adventures are compulsively readable. Do note that this book is quite graphic in its depictions of crime scenes!
The Golem and the Jinni by Helen Wecker (1890s US)
The Golem and the Jinni is a work of historical fantasy with an emphasis on historical. While Chava and Ahmad, the titular golem and jinni, are compelling and complex protagonists, the real star here is Wecker’s extraordinary prose, which conjures up nineteenth-century New York in lively detail. There, Chava and Ahmad find community and each other, and construct their own forms of liberation. The interplay between the fantastical and the real is simply masterful; Wecker integrates Jewish mythos into her magic to relate the stories of immigrants in a way that feels authentic. An utter delight from start to finish.
Natasha Siegel is the author of Solomon’s Crown, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She was born and raised in London, where she grew up in a Danish-Jewish family surrounded by stories. Her poetry has won accolades from the University of Oxford.
