Jewish Studies Sunday Book & Discussion Group

Sunday, September 10, 2023, 2:00-3:15pm
Night Angels by Weina Dai Randel
Meeting facilitated by Prof. Elizabeth Drummond, LMU History department

Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China, is posted in Vienna with his American wife, Grace. Shy and ill at ease with the societal obligations of diplomats' wives, Grace is an outsider in a city beginning to feel the sweep of the Nazi dragnet. When Grace forms a friendship with her Jewish tutor, Lola Schnitzler, Dr. Ho requests that Grace keep her distance. His instructions are to maintain amicable relations with the Third Reich, and he and Grace are already under their vigilant eye. But when Lola's family is subjugated to a brutal pogrom, Dr. Ho decides to issue them visas to Shanghai. As violence against the Jews escalates after Kristallnacht and threats mount, Dr. Ho must issue thousands more to help Jews escape Vienna before World War II explodes. Based on a remarkable true story, Night Angels explores the risks brave souls took and the love and friendship they built and lost while fighting against incalculable evil.
THERE ARE 17 COPIES @ LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY and UNLIMITED E-books via HOOPLA AT LOS ANGELES COUNTY LIBRARY

Sunday, October 22, 2023, 2:00-3:15pm
Moses, Man of the Mountain By Zora Neale Hurston
Meeting facilitated by Kim Harris, LMU Theological Studies

In this 1939 novel based on the familiar story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston blends the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of black folklore and song to create a compelling allegory of power, redemption, and faith. Narrated in a mixture of biblical rhetoric, black dialect, and colloquial English, Hurston traces Moses' life from the day he Is launched into the Nile river in a reed basket, to his development as a great magician, to his transformation into the heroic rebel leader, the Great Emancipator. From his dramatic confrontations with Pharaoh to his fragile negotiations with the wary Hebrews, this very human story is told with great humor, passion, and psychological insight–the hallmarks of Hurston as a writer and champion of black culture.  
THERE ARE 7 books AND 2 E-books AT LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY. This book can also be found in Novels and stories by Zora Neale Hurston. THERE ARE  2 books; UNLIMITED E-books VIA HOOPLA AT LOS ANGELES COUNTY LIBRARY.

SUNDAY, November 19, 2023, 2:00-3:15pm
Once We Were Home by Jennifer Rosner
Author, Jennifer Rosner on Zoom.
When your past is stolen, where do you belong?
Ana will never forget her mother’s face when she and her baby brother, Oskar, were sent out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves.

Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem.
THERE ARE 11 BOOKS, E-books and Audio books available @ Los Angeles Public Library