Dear Friends:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
 
Dickens’ words seem quite apt following the horrific Hamas attack on Shemini Atzeret.  I am deeply saddened by this willful aggression towards innocent civilians, and I am also angered by the lack of condemnation of this terrorist activity by many non-Jews.  Further, I am discouraged about the prospects for peace.  Fifty years from now, long after I am gone, I suspect that the memory of the October 7^th atrocities will still be part of the Jewish psyche, and that event will become part of the long history of antisemitism.  Nonetheless, Am Yisrael Chai – the people of Israel will endure! 
 
My itinerant rabbi work this last quarter took me to Warsaw, Poland, for the High Holidays, and I experienced the full gamut of emotions during our sixteen-day visit.  On the one hand, our trip was dominated by the obvious tragedy of the Holocaust.  Those ghosts of murdered Jews were somehow always present for me, and I made visits to Auschwitz and Treblinka (and the reclaimed Jewish cemetery at Tarczyn and the Remah cemetery in Krakow and the Warsaw Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street).  Dead Jewish souls everywhere.
 
On the other hand, I relished the opportunity to serve a living Jewish community that exists today despite the devastation of the community of the previous centuries.  As one congregant put it, this congregation is a remnant of a remnant, and yet we sang familiar tunes, shared familiar prayers, and observed familiar Jewish holidays just like anywhere else in the world.
 
In Warsaw, I conducted a couple of lively Q&A sessions, led services on Erev Rosh HaShanah, both days of Rosh HaShanah, erev Shabbat Shuvah and Shabbat Shuvah day, Kol Nidre, and a full Yom Kippur day as well as conducting a funeral just before leaving town.  I also gave a talk in the History Department at the University of Warsaw on the Jewish scientists involved in the Manhattan Project when Los Alamos was created to develop the first atomic bomb.  All in all, this Poland adventure was quite the experience.
 
These past few months, I had the honor of officiating at wedding ceremonies in Chicago, Bend (Oregon), and Washington, D.C. I delivered a variety of talks (on the Manhattan Project Jews; on Lewis Strauss and Robert Oppenheimer; on our experiences between 2014 and 2018 in Beijing; on the Jewish attitude towards medical aid in dying; on preparations for the High Holidays and the liturgy of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur; and a 3-part introduction to Judaism) around the state and on Zoom with the Warsaw community.  Balancing some of the sadness associated with end-of-life issues and cemeteries, I had the pleasure of leading both a baby naming and a Bat Mitzvah ceremony in Los Alamos this past quarter.  I also led Shabbat services over Zoom for the congregation in Lima, Ohio.
 
Perhaps we appreciate joy more fully by recognizing that there are times when we also experience great sadness.  As the Psalmist says, “Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning (30:6).”  “May such mornings come to all of us when we most long for them” (Psalms of the Jewish Liturgy – Miriyam Glazer).
 
B’Shalom,
Rabbi Jack

Dear Friends:

I’m often intrigued by false cognates.  Hoodoos, also called tent rocks, are common geological features around Los Alamos, the result of erosion of soft rock underneath a harder rock.  This results in a tall, frequently tapered spire with a hard rock sitting up on the top.  Upon first seeing these amazing structures, one wonders how that rock got up there!  “Hodu” in Hebrew means to give thanks, and though the words sound quite similar, they are unrelated etymologically.  Nonetheless, this false cognate (words that sound the same in different languages but mean something completely different) teaches us an important lesson.  We have so many things for which we can and should be thankful, including the beauties of the natural world.
 
The Jewish practice of starting every day with a series of morning blessings is particularly wise, in my opinion, because it forces us to begin our routine by acknowledging all that we have for which to be thankful.  I encourage us to consider taking two minutes out of our morning to open our eyes to the miracles around us.  Please feel free to share with me the results of this experiment; I’m confident it will help inspire me to focus more carefully on my own, sometimes rote practice.
 
This past quarter included a week-long trip to Israel to visit Beverly’s father, and we were fortunate to time things and experience both Israel Memorial Day and Israeli Independence Day.  Regardless of one’s views on the controversy in Israel, I am glad that we are including a prayer for the State of Israel in our services at the Los Alamos Jewish Center and HaMakom.
 
Sadly, I officiated at multiple unveilings (Annie Kuzava, Itai Rosen, Zev Guber) and funerals (Harvey Taylor, Harry Rosenblum) which also serve as a reminder for us to be thankful for each day of life.  It was certainly joyous to help Zev’s grandson receive his Hebrew name (Zev) – the Ashkenazic custom of memorializing one who has passed away is particularly powerful to me.  Preparing and delivering presentations on 1) the Jewish dimension to Robert Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss, 2) Maimonides as a medieval exemplar of the unity between faith and science, 3) the Jewish perspective on medical aid in dying, and 4) a reprise of a talk I’ve given previously on the Jews at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.
 
Listening to the beautiful song by Craig Taubman called “Kaddishel” about the person who recites the memorial prayer for one who has died prompted another false cognate for me with the word “codicil,” the modification to a will.  Perhaps we should be living our lives so that our wills – what we pass on to the next generation – are modified to ensure people will remember us for how we helped make the world a better place when we left than when we came in.
 
B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack

Dear Friends:

The fall holidays provide us with an annual opportunity to take stock of where we’ve been and where we are heading.  A different cycle also came to a close for me with the completion of a study discipline focused on the lesser known of the two Talmuds, the Talmud of the Land of Israel, sometimes called the Jerusalem Talmud or Yerushalmi.  This is distinct from the Talmud of Babylonia, the Bavli, which is regarded as the more authoritative of the two encyclopedic works. 

In August 2018 I embarked on a study routine of a page of Yerushalmi a day, Daf Yomi Yerushalmi, following a worldwide study regimen, and I am pleased to have survived the process, learning the very last page at the end of October 2022.  This calls for a Shehechiyanu blessing, expressing gratitude for having reached this special occasion.  It also is incumbent on me to eat an extra piece of dessert, based on the teaching from the Yerushalmi (Y. Kid. 4:12) that “a person will be called to account on judgment day for every permissible thing that he might have enjoyed but did not.”

In addition to my Yerushalmi practice, I kept busy this past quarter with the rich traditions of the fall holiday cycle, co-leading services for the HaMakom Santa Fe congregation with Cantor Cindy Freedman.  In order to give proper attention to the Bavli, I also instituted a Saturday afternoon Talmud class where we’ve been progressing methodically through Tractate Megilla (nominally discussing Purim but getting far afield at times).  It’s been wonderful to have a dozen or more HaMakom participants in that weekly class. 

The Los Alamos Jewish Center and the Albuquerque JCC also provided me with opportunities for additional adult Jewish education programs, and we’ve looked at a high-level overview of the High Holidays as well as the Jewish perspective on termination of pregnancy.  I also recently spoke to a Los Alamos National Laboratory First Responders group about Jewish traditions associated with death and burial.

Recent life cycle events ran the gamut from tragedy to elation – I officiated at a funeral for a beloved teenager as well as offering blessings for special birthdays in the congregation, kiddush at the wedding of some good friends and reciting one of the sheva berachot at Beverly’s niece’s wedding.

All in all, I find myself quite content in northern New Mexico, acknowledging that the same page of the Yerushalmi also teaches that “it is forbidden to live in a town that does not have a physician or a vegetable garden.”

Books continue to be my obsession.  Below are titles I read over the past quarter, and I’d love to hear your suggestions.

B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack

Last quarter’s reading list is below

Poems of Jerusalem – Yehuda Amichai

Jewish Vienna 1860-1938 – ed. Helfried Seemann and Christian Lunzer

The Palace Gates: Parables for the High Holy Days – Rabbi Shalom Wallach

To Be A Man – Nicole Krauss

Seeds in the Desert – Mendel Mann; tr. Heather Valencia

The Dark Gate: Selected Poems of David Vogel; tr. A.C. Jacobs

Yiddish for Everyone – Leslie Michele Manas

Before Our Very Eyes – Danny Siegel

Tashlich and the Thirteen Attributes – translation and commentary by Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Feuer

The Book of Alfred Kantor: An Artist’s Journal of the Holocaust – Alfred Kantor

It Is Impossible to Remain Silent – Jorge Semprun and Elie Wiesel

I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! How to Help Someone with Mental Illness Accept Treatment – Xavier Amador

Letters to Camondo – Edmund deWaal

The Scout – Steven Plaut

Where We Once Gathered: Lost Synagogues of Europe – Andrea Strongwater

Hebrew Manuscript Painting – David Goldstein

Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali; translated by Marcela Sulak

Insight Israel: The View from Schechter – David Golinkin

100 Poems Without a Country – Erich Fried; tr. Stuart Hood

Man Ray: The Artist and His Shadows – Arthur Lubow
 

Dear Friends:
 
My childhood Jewish religious education outside the home followed what I think was the conventional Conservative synagogue approach of the baby boom era.  We learned Bible stories and the aleph-bet, meeting a few hours every Sunday, from ages 5-9.  This was then augmented by two after-school weekday lessons which taught us to read Hebrew and recite some prayers.  That program started around age 10 and ended, for most kids, a few minutes after becoming Bar Mitzvah.  I actually lasted another year in what was called Hebrew High School which by my recollection only met on Sundays.  Our teacher was a most engaging Rabbi whose name I’ve forgotten but who memorably shared with us a passage from the Talmud, my first exposure to serious Jewish study.
 
In the pre-Bar Mitzvah period, I gained the skill of reading Hebrew (though with almost zero comprehension).  I also acquired the skill of leading a Shabbat morning service through mandatory attendance at Saturday “children’s” services.  Each week, a different class would be on the hook to provide leadership for various parts of the service.  The coveted position of cantor, which my brothers and I were all expected to seek, provided the prayer leader (shaliach tsibbur) with an opportunity to stand alongside Rabbi Ezra Perkal.  He seemed ancient to me then – in reality he was actually in his early thirties. Rabbi Perkal taught us the melodies for a typical Ashkenazi Shabbat service, and those remained dormant in my brain for a decade.
 
After age 14, Judaism played little role in my life until I arrived as a graduate student in Los Alamos and decided that there were probably worse ways to meet people in town than at the Los Alamos Jewish Center.  All those old melodies now were awakened, and I found that my singing could again help lead a congregation, this time one which comprised mostly adults. 

During the early 1980s, Rabbi Leonard Helman of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe was under contract to visit Los Alamos roughly once a month to teach adult education, and he exposed me to the vast corpus of traditional Jewish texts.  It was a startling realization to me that Judaism was not something for children, and I embarked on a life-long study of the richness of our tradition, learning from other rabbis and teachers whenever possible.  I remember that Rabbi Helman taught a series on Pirke Avot, sometimes known as the Ethics of the Fathers, and we learned the passage (4:1), “Who is wise? One who learns from all people.”  I’ve been blessed to learn about and develop a love for Judaism from many people, and for this I am deeply grateful.
 
This past quarter I shared some of what I’ve learned from others on a variety of occasions including the Bar Mitzvah ceremony of the son of one of my first Bar Mitzvah students (time is flying by!!), at the annual Kochavim Israeli Dance Camp in Texas (I served as Beverly’s non-dancing spouse), at a Life and Legacy Jewish Endowment gathering in Albuquerque, at a Santa Fe Interfaith Leadership Alliance event, at the funeral and shiva minyans for a beloved congregant from HaMakom, and at the service honoring Los Alamos High School graduates.  I also learned either remotely or in person from Rabbis Tamar Malino, Azriel Fellner, Neil Amswych, Martin Levy, Berel Levertov, Ron Wittenstein, Avraham Kelman, Elizabeth Goldstein, and others.  And I close this PhysicsRabbi quarterly with a quote from Albert Einstein: “Once you stop learning, you start dying.”  May you all go forth and learn.
 
B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack
 

Last quarter’s reading list is below, with highlights denoted by an asterisk*

Dear Friends:
 
Beverly and I continued our transition from New York to New Mexico this past quarter, swapping out New York-style pizza for green chile, as we embarked on the arduous task of unpacking hundreds of boxes, many of them books, which had been stowed in our Los Alamos garage during our nearly month-long drive across country.  I discovered yet again that I am not as capable of handling change as I once was; I’m still adjusting to life without a daily National Laboratory routine. My focus is now on rabbinic activities, primarily in Santa Fe at HaMakom where I serve as rabbi, and in Los Alamos where I’ve often led Friday night services. 
 
One of things I admire about our Jewish texts is that the characters, even the most heroic and laudable among them, are all human with flaws as well as notably positive traits. Think of Moses (on occasion quick-tempered), King David (uncontrolled lust), and Jacob (deceitful). King Saul is particularly flawed at times, and the case can even be made that he shows evidence of manic-depression. I find it helpful to realize that we all experience emotional ups and downs, and our move to New Mexico challenged my mental health more than I anticipated. Through this period, I’ve been blessed with the support of my brother, Ted, my son, Dov, my primary care physician, and most of all, my helpmeet, Beverly. 
 
Before we recite the central passage of the morning Jewish worship service, the sequence of blessings known as the standing prayer or Amidah, we invoke the Divine as Tsur Yisrael, the Rock of Israel.  Perhaps the rabbis recognized that the Amidah, our opportunity to converse with G_d, forces us each morning to examine our lives, lives which can often seem bewildering or filled with change, sometimes driving anxiety. The image of the Rock of Israel, steadfast and unchanging, provides us with a degree of constancy and consistency that offers us comfort. 
 
During our road trip back to New Mexico, we stopped to join congregations in Roanoke, VA, Memphis, TN, and San Antonio, TX, and each experience was wonderful in its own way.  We met lovely people, learned new Shabbat tunes, and look forward to visiting those synagogues again. 
 
Despite the chaos of the move, I’ve been immersing myself in rabbinic activities.  Within the first two months of our return to the Land of Enchantment, I was privileged to conduct several lifecycle events including a Bar Mitzvah ceremony (kvelling over the fact that Dov served as the Bar Mitzvah tutor), a wedding, and a funeral, each of which represented a transition for those present.  Our Jewish traditions can provide that same comfort as we recite words from generations of teachers who draw on our rich text library. I drew on that library to teach a mini-class on How to Lead a Seder and then led or co-led seders for the HaMakom community in Santa Fe and the Los Alamos community. 
 
There are many ideas for classes I’d like to teach to the Jewish communities of Northern New Mexico and beyond, and I welcome suggestions for topics from potential participants.  In the meantime, it’s back to unpacking boxes and discovering books I never knew I owned! 
 
B’shalom, 
Rabbi Jack 
 
Last quarter’s reading list is below, with highlights denoted by an asterisk*


Rabbi Jack Shlachter
Judaism for Your Nuclear Family
physicsrabbi@gmail.com
www.physicsrabbi.com

My reading list for the past quarter is artificially inflated by several short works, but now that books are reappearing on my shelves, I promise to return to lengthier works – honest! 
 
The Sages (Volume 1) – Binyamin Lau; tr. Michael Prawer 

Moneyball – Michael Lewis (no Jewish content but all I could find at one point on our journey) 

Alfred Stieglitz (Jewish Lives series) – Phyllis Rose 

Lillian Hellman (Jewish Lives) –  Dorothy Gallagher 

The Pity of It All* – Amos Elon 

Yiddish Tales – tr. Helena Frank 

Kaddish and other Poems – Allen Ginsberg 

Rashi’s Daughters, Book 1: Joheved – Maggie Anton 

The Book of J – Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg 

Our Country Friends – Gary Shteyngart 

Codex Maimuni: The Illuminated Pages of the Kaufman Mishnah Torah 

New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews: Photographs by Cary Herz 

World of Our Fathers* – Irving Howe 

Falik and His House – Jacob Dinezon; tr. Mindy Liberman 

Solos and Ensembles – Philip LeCuyer 

You Are Not Alone: Solace and Inspiration for Domestic Violence Survivors Based on Jewish Wisdom – Toby
Landesman 

Blue Has No South – Alex Epstein; tr. Becka Mara McKay 

Frayed Light – Yonatan Berg; tr. Joanna Chen 

Arabic Folk Tales – Asher Barash 

Through an Endless Stretch of Land – Kadya Molodowsky; tr. Yaira Singer  
 

Dear Friends:

I begin this bittersweet missive with a paraphrase of a passage from the first major Rabbinic text, the Mishnah, in which Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah composed a prayer (M. Ber. 4).  This prayer expresses my own experience with the Jewish Center of the Moriches. “Upon my entrance, I prayed that no mishaps should occur because of me; and upon my departure, I offer thanksgiving for my good fortune in having been among you.”

In July 2019 it was “Go East, Young Man.”  Now it’s “Return West, not-as-young Man.”  I thought the title of this missive was cute, but it’s not terribly accurate.  Technically, of course, Beverly and I were living for the past two-and-a-half years on eastern Long Island, not in the boroughs of New York City, and I can’t remember that I’ve ever seen a Southwestern burro (Spanish for “donkey”) except for the statue in Burro Alley in downtown Santa Fe. Nonetheless, the title captures the focus of this past quarter which was our move back to the high desert of Northern New Mexico.  
 
While still in New York, Beverly and I ventured further out on the island for a weekend getaway in East Hampton where we davened in a gorgeous shul (Jewish Center of the Hamptons) which we’d Zoomed into on occasion.  In New England, I got to revisit the lovely Boston Synagogue on a brief trip to visit my niece, Ruby.  Both occasions resulted in aliyah honors for which I am grateful.  Closer to home (now our former home), I had the privilege of delivering a d’var Torah at Temple Beth El in Patchogue, NY, and TBE also generously offered me the opportunity to chant Haftarah on multiple Shabbatot.  
 
At the Jewish Center of the Moriches where Beverly and I were indeed privileged to serve, we held a mixture of Zoom-only and hybrid (Zoom plus in-person) events including a long-awaited Bar Mitzvah ceremony.  I also represented JCM at a few outdoor civic/public “menorah” (technically “Hanukkiot”) lighting events over Hanukah.  At one of those, I quoted from George Washington’s letter to the Touro Synagogue: “The Government of the United States… gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”  Our first president’s words remain remarkably relevant today.
 
Preparations for moving back to the southwest, including packing 85 boxes of books, put a crimp in my reading list (see below).  I guess electronic readers have a few advantages, but I’m still addicted to print copies on shelves.  Please send me your reading suggestions, and once we’re unpacked, I’ll resume my book-buying mania.  Until then, quoting from the aforementioned August 21, 1790 presidential brief, “May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.”
 
B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack
 
Last quarter’s reading list is below, with highlights denoted by an asterisk*


Rabbi Jack Shlachter
Judaism for Your Nuclear Family
physicsrabbi@gmail.com

The Rivals & Other Stories – Jonah Rosenfeld, tr. from Yiddish by Rachel Mines

Knowing God – Elliot Dorff

Structure and Form in the Babylonian Talmud – Louis Jacobs

The Story of Bible Translations – Max Margolis

Track Changes – Sayed Kashua (Thanks go to Phyllis for recommending this book to me)

Rav Kook’s Introduction to Shabbat Ha’Aretz – tr. Julian Sinclair

The Last Jew – Yoram Kaniuk, tr. Barbara Harshav

A Book of Psalms – selected and adapted from the Hebrew by Stephen Mitchell

The Doctrine of the Zaddik in the Thought of Elimelech of Lizensk – Louis Jacobs

People Love Dead Jews-Dara Horn

Rav Kook:Mystic in a Time of Revolution – Yehudah Mirsky

Zoom Torah – Mitchell Chefitz (Kindle)

A History of Jewish Literature Vol. 1 – The Arabic-Spanish Period – Israel Zinberg – tr. Bernard Martin

Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn – Daniel Gordis

Irving Berlin: New York Genius* – James Kaplan

Maimonides: Life and Thought – Moshe Halbertal

God: A Biography* – Jack Miles
 
and uncharacteristically, binge-watching the Israeli television series Srugim while in the midst of packing
 

Dear Friends:

The Talmud (BT Shab. 30a) says that “there is no marriage contract and wedding in which contentiousness does not arise,” but I find all weddings to be joyous affairs nonetheless. Beverly and I spent a week and a half in New Mexico in October, where I was privileged to officiate at not one but two weddings and meet with two other couples whose weddings are slated for 2022.  

I then headed into Brooklyn two days after our return to New York to perform another wedding ceremony. The process of registering to conduct weddings in New York City was complex, and it required that I muster both patience and persistence. Fortunately, I was ultimately successful and am now proud to have an officiant registration number from NYC.  I suspect that there is a pandemic backlog of wedding ceremonies in the offing, and I hope to help share in the joy of as many couples as possible.  

Recently, I was a student in a wonderful 8-lecture course taught by Rabbi Shai Held on the theme of Love and Judaism (I’m ever grateful that lifelong learning has been facilitated by the ubiquity of Zoom – perhaps this is the KAVOD [honor] of COVID).  The love that G_d expresses toward people can be transformed into the love we demonstrate toward each other, and I find that wedding ceremonies provide a powerful opportunity to witness this transformation.  
 
I also participated in other life cycle events over the past quarter including holding Beverly’s newest great nephew at a brit milah (I didn’t even come close to dropping him!), officiating at a Bar Mitzvah ceremony at the Jewish Center of the Moriches, and attending a funeral service for a JCM congregant, Michael Schondorf.  Mike was a sweet, sweet man whom I met at High Holiday services in 2019, and although he was trapped in Puerto Rico during much of the pandemic, it was always a treat when he was able to phone in to our Shabbat evening services.

Sadly, my first cousin, David Sherman, also passed away recently. I was honored to be able to support the family by leading a shiva minyan in the Chicago area. The presence of Beverly, my brother, Ted, my Aunt Bobbie, and my other cousins plus scores of David and Sue’s friends and family mitigated a bit of the grief in our loss of this special person. May Mike’s and David’s memories serve as blessings.
 
Various other rabbinic responsibilities continued to keep me out of trouble.  I enjoyed leading the plethora of Tishrei holiday services in hybrid mode (in-person plus Zoom) at the Jewish Center of the Moriches, taught some classes in advance of the High Holidays, worked a few times with the Sunday School, and even led a delegation to an exhibition baseball game featuring the Israeli Olympic team. I got to chant a chapter of the Book of Lamentations as well as Haftarot at a few nearby synagogues on Long Island and co-led services in Santa Fe on our New Mexico trip.

But the real highlight of my rabbi-ing is to chant the wedding blessings.  May the gates of Jerusalem ring with the sounds of joy, song, merriment, and delight – the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, the happy shouts of their friends and companions.
 
B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack

Scroll down for last quarter’s reading list.

Last quarter’s reading list, with highlights denoted by an asterisk*

Petty Business* – Yirmi Pinkus, tr. Evan Fallenberg and Yardenne Greenspan

With Roots in Heaven – Tirzah Firestone

Maybe You Will Survive – Aron Goldfarb and Graham Diamond

The Conversion of Chaplain Cohen – Herbert Tarr

The Abandoned Book and Other Yiddish Stories – ed. Eitan Krensky

The Jewish Wife and Other Short Plays – Bertolt Brecht, tr. Eric Bentley

The Silver Candelabra and Other Stories: A Century of Jewish Argentine Literature – ed. Rita Gardiol

The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud – Jeffrey Rubenstein

Last Bullet Calls It – Amir Gutfreund, tr. Evan Fallenberg and Yardenne Greenspan

Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream – Michael Shnayerson

Burnt Pearls: Ghetto Poems – Abraham Sutzkever, tr. Seymour Mayne

Responsa in War Time – Division of Religious Activities National Jewish Welfare Board

Apiqoros: The Last Essays of Salomon Maimon – tr. Timothy Sean Quinn

The Greatest Story Ever Sold – A Considered and Whimsical Illumination of the Really Good Parts of the Holy Writ – Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor

The Modern Family and Jewish Law – ed. Walter Jacob

Oreo* – Fran Ross (If you are the person who suggested this book to me, I am very grateful to you)

Genesis – Bill Moyers

The Beijing Haggadah* – created by Leon Fenster

Sage Tales: Wisdom and Wonder from the Rabbis of the Talmud* – Burton Visotzky

On Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms – Albert Einstein

Tel Aviv Noir – ed. Etgar Keret and Assaf Gavron, tr. Yardenne Greenspan

Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker – David Mikics

Understanding Genesis – Nahum Sarna