There was a special Shir Hadash Community Shabbat Service for Jewish Book Month on Saturday, December 1, 2012, at 10:30 am. Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman of the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City has chosen One Hundred Great Jewish Books; at this service, members of the Congregation offered brief presentations on these books, and also suggestions for books left off the list. We divided into several circles, each of which discussed a few books, grouped by theme.

All 100 books are listed on this page; each listing includes a link to the book’s page on this site, an Amazon link for your convenience, and links to local libraries which have the book in their collections.

Members of the Congregation posted comments and reviews about the books they’ve “adopted” on this site; they are listed below. Comments and reviews express the opinions of the writers, of course.

Reviews from Our Members

• As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
• Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets
• Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
• Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska
• Entertaining America by J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler
• From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman
• Gentleman’s Agreement by Laura Z. Hobson
• Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
• Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides
• In My Father’s Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Jews Without Money by Michael Gold
• Maus by Art Spiegelman
• My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
• Poetry and Stories by Yehuda Amichai
• Principles of the Jewish Faith by Louis Jacobs
• Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer
• Survival in Auschwitz; The Reawakening by Primo Levi
• Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem
• The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden
• The Brothers Ashkenazi by Israel Joshua Singer
• The Complete Stories by Bernard Malamud
• The Diaries by Theodor Herzl
• The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln by Gluckel of Hamelin
• The Pity of It All by Amos Elon
• The Promised City by Moses Rischin
• The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
• The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar
• The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
• The Wise Men of Helm and Their Merry Tales by Solomon Simon