Fig Tree Books

08/09/2025

Fig Tree Lit Sept 2025 () Issue #70 is now available at https://conta.cc/41AF7Rs. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Jewish & Black: Finding my identity with the Rebbe
ONLINE COURSE from TIKVAH: Meet the Jewish Minds Who Transformed American Culture
ESSAY: The Bridge Between Us, by Neil Plakcy
BOOK: The Secret Orphanage, by Barbara Josselsohn
ESSAY: Meeting Janet, the Jewish Love Story of Howard Wach, by Howard Lovy
BOOK: When the Stones Speak, by Doron Spielman
BOOK - STUDY GUIDE: It Takes Two to Torah, by Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer
ESSAY: Israel Eliminationism, by Henry Kopel
MONTHLY BLOG: The Death and Life of the Streaight White Man's Novel, by Marc Tracy

06/08/2025

Fig Tree Lit August 2025 () Issue #69 is now available at https://conta.cc/3J004z2. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: My Jewish Family Hid in China for 250 Years
SPORTS: The Yeshiva University men’s basketball team
FILM: Centered, about Senator Joe Lieberman, written and directed by Jonathan Gruber
ESSAY: Shema, by LenaMunzer
BOOK: The Truth About the Tooth Fairy (Miriam's Magical Creature Files #1), by Leah Cypress, illustrated by Sarah Lynne Reul
BOOK: Mixed, by Tamar Hodes
ESSAY: The Culture Clash that Wasn't, by Michael Gold
BOOK: The Meaning of the Murder, by Walter Levis
ESSAY: We Don't Care! by Sarah Tuttle-Singer
MONTHLY BLOG: Shelf censorship - How US publishing boycotts Israel and its supporters, by Liel Leibovitz

02/07/2025

Fig Tree Lit July 2025 () Issue #68 is now available at https://conta.cc/4lxSFF1. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: A pocket guide to the Jewish grandmothers of Mexico, by
BOOK: On Democracies and Death Cults, by
LIFESTYLE: Berkeley Moshav
SHORT STORY: Vagabond, by Larry Lefkowitz by
SOCIAL MEDIA: The Social Media Sensation Who Discovered Her Jewish Soul by Ellie Zoller
JEWS OF THE UNIVERSE: Introducing Vanessa Hidary, by Elissa Wald
NEW BOOKS FROM CENTRO PRIMO LEVI: The Renegade, by Aiel Toaff and The Trunk, by Alberto Vigevani
FIG TREE BOOKS BACKLIST: My Mother's Son and Jacobo's Rainbow, by & Safekeeping, by Jessamyn Hope

05/06/2025

Fig Tree Lit June 2025 Issue #67 is now available at https://conta.cc/3ZhUcGN. Includes:

JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Meet These Hispanic Jews Impacting the World
ESSAY: Two Christians Made a Show about Jews. It’s Phenomenal, By Batya Ungar-Sargon
BOOK: Beyond Proportionality- Israel's Just War in Gaza, by Thane Rosenbaum
SHORT STORY: Laugh or Die, by Alan Swyer
ESSAY: Cracking the Code- What Torah Trope Are You? by Rabbi Sharon Forman
ESSAY: How America’s Jews Became America’s ‘New Blacks’
MEMOIR: Thread of Life, My Russian Legacy, by Jennifer Kavanagh
PODCAST: Tikvah's Building the Impossible Dream: The History of Zionism
ESSAY: Open Season, by Eve Barlow

06/05/2025

Fig Tree Lit May 2025 Issue #66 is now available at https://conta.cc/3GIfUgD. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Typical Scottish Jewish girl makes home in Zambia after dumping legal career in UK
REVIEW: 'The Message' by Ta-Nehisi Coates, by Mike Coté - Coates the Charlatan
BOOKS: the post-Holocaust trilogy - The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible, by - In honor of Yom HaShoah, 27th of Nisan April 25
ESSAY: Unlock Sephardi Culture and Connection with these 10 Ladino Phrases, by Ellie Rudee
MEMOIR: Internee Number 6, by Maria Eisenstein
PODCAST: Jewish Crossroads with Tamar Ish Shalom - Conversation with David Wolpe - Jewish Identity in Times of Crisis
REVIEW: Tablets Shat­tered: The End of an Amer­i­can Jew­ish Cen­tu­ry and the Future of Jew­ish Life, by Joshua Leifer
COOKBOOK: Sabor Judio: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook, by Ilan Stavans and Margaret Boyle

07/04/2025

Fig Tree Lit April 2025 Issue #65 is now available at https://conta.cc/3R7AtoD. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Meet 4 Black Jewish leaders
NOVEL: Counting Backwards, by
ESSAY: The vanishing Stars of David, by Austin Reid
NOVEL: The Trade Off, by Samantha Greene Woodruff
MEMOIR: Under A Red Sky, by Haya Molnar
ESSAY: The Man Whose Name Lived On, by Michelle Clark
SHORT STORY: A Game of War, by Douglas Chait
BOOK: One Little Goat, by

06/03/2025

Fig Tree Lit March 2025 Issue #64 is now available at https://conta.cc/4haebwT. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Tani Prell
GUEST COLUMNIST: , Cause and Effect
NOVEL: The Baker of Lost Memories, by
ESSAY: Is it the end of a Jewish Golden Age? by Stephen Daniel Arnoff
ARTICLE: Finding his faith - The Mayor of Providence converts to Judaism, by Stephen Machado
NOVEL: The Midwives' Escape From Egypt to Jericho, by
ESSAY: Why I won't teach at Columbia, by
ARTICLE: How a Jewish teen’s description of New York life in 1945 is going viral on TikTok
NEW BOOK RELEASE: It Takes Two to Torah, by &

05/02/2025

Fig Tree Lit February 2025 Issue #63 is now available at https://conta.cc/4gsjxUa. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Kelly Lynch, GEN Z
NOVEL: Viva, Violetta & Verdi, by Howard Jay Smith
SHORT STORY: The Walker, by Haya Molnar
ESSAY: The New Jewish Question at CCNY, By Michael Gold
NOVEL: Adam Unrehearsed, by Don Futterman
POETRY, PHILOSOPHY AND A GAMBLING RABBI: A colorful history of Venice’s Jewish ghetto, by Rich Tenorio
ADAPTATION OF A CHAPTER FROM A NOVEL: The pet rabbit and the year that Rabin died, by Ephrat Huss
NOVEL: The Last Dekreptizer, by Howard Langer
NEW BOOK RELEASE: It Takes Two to Torah, by Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer

06/01/2025

Fig Tree Lit January 2025 Issue #62 is now available at https://conta.cc/40pOHH2. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Anti-Semitism Helped Make Me a Jew - A convert’s story, by Kassy Akiva
RABBI RICK JACOBS' PODCAST: 'We Show Up in Places That Some of the Jewish Community Has Abandoned"
THE DILEMMAS OF A JEWISH BOOK REVIEWER, by Susan Blumberg-Kason
A SUPPLEMENT TO THE COLUMBIA FALL BULLETIN: by Steven Brett Shaklan
GUEST COLUMNISTS: Replies: to Robert Lehrer's December column - It's Mike DeWine's Fault and Other Truths about the Catastrophe
POETRY: from Jennifer Anne Moses
NEW BOOK RELEASE: It Takes Two to Torah, by & ; Interview with CNN's
BOOK: Zibby Owens takes aim at antisemitism in her new anthology

25/12/2024

and Dov Linzer, authors of It Takes Two to Torah [https://amzn.to/46mODZC], write about Hanukkah in today’s edition of The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/opinion/hanukkah-jewish-tradition.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

We follow the wisdom of the ancient rabbis in approaching both the holiday and this era.

04/12/2024

Fig Tree Lit December 2024 Issue #61 is now available at https://conta.cc/3ZA9k2F. Includes:
JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: My Family’s Grind­ing Stone: Jew­ish Cook­ing in Ahmedabad, Esther David
GUEST COLUMNISTS: It's Mike DeWine's Fault and Other Truths about the Catastrophe, by Robert Lehrer; The 2024 Election and the Disappearance of Adulthood, by Paul Schwartz
SPEECH: The Old World is not Coming Back, by Bari Weiss
BOOK: Chutzpah Girls, by Julie Silverstein and Tami Schlossberg Pruwer
BOOK: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew, by Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby
NEW BOOK RELEASE: It Takes Two to Torah, by Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer - Interview
ISRAELI ACTORS FACE A NEW BIAS IN HOLLYWOOD: But They Are Determined to Keep Fighting, by Howard Lovy
BOOKS FOR HANUKKAH GIFTS: Jacobo's Rainbow by David Hirshberg; My Jewish Year by Abigail Pogrebin; Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope; Saving Free Speech by Thane Rosenbaum