The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them

Doreen Carvajal speaks with us about how her family forged a secret relationship with Judaism over 600 years, after they were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition. Her latest book, The Girl in Blue, is an account of the Cahen d’Anvers, an aristocratic Jewish family whose portraits were painted by Renoir and whose lives were upended by the Holocaust. We discuss how she sees telling the story of the The Cahen d’Anvers family as honoring her own family’s legacy, the illusion that wealth and status can protect against persecution, and her childhood’s similarities to Scout’s in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Doreen Carvajal is a journalist and author who worked for more than twenty years at the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, reporting from Europe on culture, media, and international affairs. Her first book, The Forgetting River, traced her search for her Catholic family’s hidden Sephardic Jewish roots in southern Spain. Doreen lives outside Paris in impressionist country in a stone farmhouse.

The Girl in Blue is a work of narrative nonfiction about one of France’s wealthiest Jewish dynasties: The Cahen d’Anvers family. Drawing on newly uncovered documents, newspaper accounts, and archival records, Doreen Carvajal brings to life the intertwined journeys of this woman and a painting.

Doreen Carvajal’s Five Books:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani3. Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano4. Sido by Colette

5. The Girl in Blue by Doreen Carvajal

Also Mentioned:

Irène Cahen d’Anvers (Little Irene) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1880

Pink and Blue (The Cahen D'Anvers Girls) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881

Une Soirée by Jean Béraud, 1878

The Forgetting River by Doreen Carvajal

Hineni

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Georgia Hunter on Discovering her Family’s Jewish History

Samantha Ellis on Becoming a Keeper of Her Ancestral Language

Elizabeth Graver On Lost Worlds and New Doorways

Jordan Salama On Rescuing his Family's “Historia Antigua”

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

In this conversation, we’ll talk about how Helene transformed her family’s history into myth, how her childhood as a Jewish, nerdy sci-fi fan and her experience of passing and hiding in plain sight made it into the character of Chava, the golem, and we’ll discuss why writing historical fantasy gave her the opening to explore the big questions of what it means to be human.

Helene Wecker was in the midst of an MFA program, writing a realistic collection of short stories about the legacy of immigration and her relationship with her Arab-American husband, when a friend challenged her to use the fantastic and to tell a larger story. That was how Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, was born. The novel was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award.

Helene Wecker’s work has appeared in literary journals such as Joyland and Catamaran, as well as the fantasy anthology The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children.

Helene Wecker’s Five Books:

1. The Bible, Book of Exodus

2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

3. Orbital by Samantha Harvey

4. That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist by Sylvia Boorstein

5. The Gates of Midnight by Helene Wecker

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Portia Elan on the Future We Choose

Toby Lloyd on Biblical Horror and being a Jewish Atheist

Jeremy Dauber on Jewish Literature, Pop Culture, and What The Horror Genre Reveals About America

Allison Epstein on Taking on One of Literature’s Most Notoriously Antisemitic Characters

Also Mentioned:

Are You There God, it’s me Margaret by Judy Blume

"The Golem" by Naomi Kritzer (from the collection Comrade Grandmother and other stories)

We’re thrilled to share that The Five Books has been nominated for a Signal Award in Religion and Spirituality!

This nomination is a testament to our team’s hard work and our listener’s support. We’d be so grateful if you’d take a moment to vote for us! Thank you!

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Thank you to Emma Simon for her help with this episode.

One Thanksgiving, when Jordan Salama was home from school, he noticed a thick binder in his grandfather's basement labeled “Historia Antigua”, which means ancient history in Spanish. Stuffed with photographs and documents, Jordan found that his grandfather had recorded hundreds of years of their family's history, covering movements and migrations between the Ottoman Empire and Argentina. This discovery sent Jordan on a quest to Argentina to discover the story of his great-grandfather, who had been a traveling salesman in the Andes in the early 20th century. The resulting book, Stranger in the Desert, was a finalist for the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

In this episode, we discuss Jordan’s process of ‘climbing out of a linguistic hole’ by learning his family’s languages, the interconnected identities of Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ottoman Empire in Argentina, and how he teaches others to use the tools of journalism to discover their own family histories.

Jordan Salama is an author and a contributing writer at The New Yorker. He has written about migration, culture, and the environment in the Americas. His first book, Every Day the River Changes, about a journey down Colombia’s Río Magdalena, and the people who live along its banks, was named one of the best books of 2021 by Kirkus Reviews, and a top new travel book by the New York Times.

Jordan Salama’s Five Books:

1. Even This I Get To Experience by Norman Lear

2. In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

4. Larga Distancia by Tali Goldman (Spanish Language)

5. Stranger in the Desert by Jordan Salama

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Elizabeth Graver on Lost Worlds and New Doorways

Samantha Ellis on Becoming a Keeper of Her Ancestral Language

Rachel Cockerell on The Zionist Dream that Sailed to Galveston

Also Mentioned:

Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman

Tarantula by Eduardo Halfon

Verklempt Magazine

Jordan Salama’s articles in the New Yorker

We’re thrilled to share that The Five Books has been named a finalist for a Signal Award in the category of Religion and Spirituality for our episode with Zeeva Bukai.

This recognition is a testament to our incredible team’s hard work and to our listeners’ support.

We’d be so grateful if you would take a moment to vote for us! Thank you!

Vote now

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Charming and wry, nonagenarian Francine Klagsbrun reflects on her unlikely Jewish education as a girl in the 1930s and 40s, on the seeds of her feminist activism, and on why she is grateful to have reinvigorated Henrietta Szold’s legacy.

Francine Klagsbrun has had a tremendous impact on the story of American Jewish women. Born in 1931, she has been a passionate advocate for women in Jewish religious life. Francine is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 2017.

She has been a columnist for New York Jewish Week and Moment, is a contributing editor to Lilith, and is on the editorial board of Hadassah Magazine. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Ms.magazine, and other national publications.

Her latest book, Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream, reveals the complex life and work of Henrietta Szold, renowned as the founder of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. She later moved to Mandate Palestine to help shape education, health, and social services there. The pinnacle of her career came in her seventies, when she took on the task of directing the Youth Aliyah program, which rescued thousands of young people from the Nazis and resettled them in Palestine.Using Szold’s copious letters, diaries, and essays, along with other archival documents, Francine Klagsbrun reveals Szold as a multi-faceted human being whose impact on women’s lives as well as on education and health systems still resonates. This book is part of the Jewish Lives Series, from Yale University Press. This episode was one of our very first episodes, broadcast initially in December 2024.

Francine Klagsbrun’s Five Books:

The Bible

Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Wouk

The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth

The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies

Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream, by Francine Klagsbrun

Thank you to Francine Klagsbrun and Dr. Sarah Klagsbrun for sharing personal photos which are on our social media pages: @fivebookspod on Instagram and The Five Books on Facebook.

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

After publishing her essay collection People Love Dead Jews, Dara Horn found her inbox flooded with messages from readers about their own experiences of anti-semitism. She realized that her readers wanted her to come up with an answer to all the problems she had raised. Her response is in her latest book, The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living. In this conversation, Dara explains why reading Yiddish works are critical to understanding the Holocaust. We also discuss the internalized antisemitism that both she and Sarah Hurwitz explore in their latest works, what she’s learned from Natan Sharansky, and how we should teach about Judaism as an anti-tyrannical movement.

Dara Horn is the award-winning author of seven books, including the novels The World to Come, All Other Nights, the graphic novel One Little Goat and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Dara Horn is also the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among many other honors.

Regular listeners might notice that this is Dara’s second time on the show! We were delighted to talk to Dara about her book One Little Goat last April. If you haven’t yet heard it, you can go back to Dara’s first episode on the show and hear her talk about Tevye the Dairyman by Sholom Aleichem and Mr. Mani by A B Yehoshua.

Dara Horn’s Five Books:

1.A book that inspired, informed, or is in conversation with your latest work:

As a Jew by Sarah Hurwitz2. A book you changed your mind about – one you once loved, misunderstood, or now see differently:

See Under: Love by David Grossman

3. A line or passage from a book that you think about often or that changed your worldview:

From Natan Sharansky's memoir Fear No Evil, "No one else can humiliate me. I can only humiliate myself."

4. The book you're reading now:

Arrow in the Blue by Arthur Koestler

5. Your latest book:

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Dara Horn on Being the Lorax at Her Seder Table

Sarah Hurwitz on Reclaiming Our Jewish Story

Matti Friedman on the Stories that Built a People

Sharon Brous on Working to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

Also Mentioned:

Anti-Judaism by David Nirenberg

Gentleman’s Agreement (film)

Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American by Rachel Gordan

“The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending” by Franklin Foer

The Last Consolation Vanished by Zalmen Gradowski

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Thieves in the Night by Arthur Koestler

Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth by Magda Teter

The Tell Institute

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions