Crafting a Reading List for Jewish American Heritage Month

As an American Jew, I have to admit that I didn’t know much about the nuts and bolts of the history of Jewish immigration or much at all about Jewish history in America. Last summer I read Emily Tamkin’s excellent book Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities, in which she explored the last century of Jewish history in America, and I immediately wanted everyone I knew to read it. It was interesting to read about how America saw Jewish immigrants and how, when, and why assimilation was encouraged, and how different social mores came about. It’s a fascinating book and I’d recommend it to anyone!

In the last two years or so, I’ve been doing a deep dive into Jewish books, Judaism, and history, trying to read as much as I can about these things. I went to a religious day school as a child, but chafed against much of it. My synagogue was not egalitarian back then, and it pushed me away from religion for a long time. Things have changed, and now as an adult, I’m realizing that places of worship don’t necessarily have all the answers (and shouldn’t!), but can instead provide you with a springboard to think about topics and issues, and encourage further learning.

In my efforts to learn more about Judaism — or, rather, relearn things — I took various classes at my synagogue and online, and read, and continue to read, a ton of books. I put together themed reading lists and a reading challenge for myself, to learn as much as I could about things like Jewish history, Yiddish, areas of Judaism with which I’m not familiar, Jewish mysticism, holidays, and various Jewish authors. My formal Jewish education ended in 1995, and much has changed since then — most notably, myself. That young teen is much different than the woman and mother I am today, and that’s impacted how I view life and faith, obviously, and it’s also influenced the books I’ve chosen.

I started off with wanting to refresh my memory about the basics, so I read Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice by Rabbi Wayne Dosick, and the classic How to Raise a Jewish Child by Anita Diamant. I then shifted to The Five Books of Miriam by Ellen Frankel, and Standing Again at Sinai by Judith Plaskow. My pile of Jewish feminist/mysticism books include things like Ashkenazi Herbalism by Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel, the Penguin Classic book The Kabbalistic Tradition, Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash by Tamar Biala, and Return to the Place by Jill Hammer.

My personal syllabus and reading challenge also included things like books about Yiddish, as well as Jewish and Israeli history, but since that’s not expressly an American Jewish history or experience, I’ve omitted that here. I also have not included any Holocaust books — there is no shortage of these, and as I’ve written about before, these do not tell our whole story, by far. They are important, yes, but they are also not my focus right now.

My reading challenge included prompts like Jewish poetry, Jewish romance, a Jewish YA novel, books about Jewish holidays, and things like that. I often find it helpful to brainstorm all possible prompts on a topic and then cull (or not) to come up with a well-rounded reading challenge that encourages me to read things I normally wouldn’t. This has worked so well I often make reading challenges for myself on many topics, although now I do have stacks of books that are organized by reading list/challenge.