The Charlotte Jewish News- May 2026- Page 4 Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte
Sue’ s Book Club
By Sue Littauer
The Jewish Book Council recently published and awarded its 76th National Jewish Book Awards. Inaugurated in 1950, it’ s the longest-running North American awards program of its kind and is recognized as the most prestigious.
The awards are intended to recognize authors and encourage the reading of outstanding English language books of Jewish interest. Several years ago, I had the distinct honor of serving on the Autobiography and Memoir panel, one of the over 18 categories awarded each year.
Three of this year’ s winners are books I recently read and highly recommend.“ Hostage” by Eli Sharabi is the winner of the Book of the Year Award,“ Heart of a Stranger” by Angela Buchdahl was named a finalist in the Autobiography and Memoir category, and“ Dog” by Yishay Ishi Ron, translated by Yardenne Greenspan, is the winner of both the Book Club category and the Hebrew Fiction in Translation category.
“ This recognition means so much to me, not only personally, but for the memory of my family and all those we lost,” Sharabi said of the honor.“ The book,“ Hostage” is my testimony, a story of survival, written so others could bear witness. I hope it helps ensure that what happened is never forgotten. I am grateful to the Jewish Book Council for the vital work they do in elevating Jewish voices and sustaining Jewish storytelling across generations.”
“ Hostage” is a memoir that bears witness to the atrocities of October 7 and, at the same time, makes the experience very personal and intimate. The book opens on October 7, 2023, after terrorists have burst into Sharabi’ s house. Before the first 10 pages are over, Sharabi has been kidnapped, is approaching Gaza, and goes into survival mode even before crossing the border.
He focuses on one mission: surviving to return home. Sharabi recounts his captivity in the present tense, with stark detail. He writes about moving from the house in which he was initially kept to the tunnels, the various conditions, and he captures the moods as well as whims of his captors, which often foreshadowed how the hostages were treated.( Jewish Book Council)
“ Heart of a Stranger” is the personal story of the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi. It is a stirring account of one woman’ s journey from feeling like an outsider to becoming one of the most admired religious leaders in the world.
Angela Buchdahl was born the child of a Korean woman and a Jewish American man. She was brought up as a Reform Jew, where she was legitimately considered Jewish according to patrilineal descent. Growing up, she went to temple, had a bat mitzvah, was a Jewish song leader at Jewish camps, was ordained as a cantor, and went to rabbinical school. Yet despite all these experiences, she was still viewed by some as not“ really Jewish.”
Ultimately, she formally converted to Judaism to appease her toughest critics and later became
Center for Jewish Education Book Club Schedule
The Center for Jewish Education( CJE) Book Club brings community members together to discuss selected books. Meetings take place on the second Wednesday of each month at 10:30 AM in Room A110 at Shalom Park, with all featured books available through the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library and Resource Center. Participation is open to all. To join, register as a USER at the library desk. For more information, call 704-944-6783 or contact Sue Littauer at sueb. littauer @ jewishcharlotte. org
June 10 One of Them: A Novel Kitty Zeldis
July 8 We Would Never Tova Mirvis
August 12 Counting Backwards Jacqueline Friedland
September 9 Not About Us Allegra Goodman
the senior rabbi at the Central Synagogue in New York. This book combines her life story with her teachings of Judaism and is both enlightening and educational.
“ Dog,” written by Yishay Ishi Ron, is a poignant and unflinching exploration of PTSD, addiction, and redemption, told through the eyes of an Israeli officer returning from Gaza.
Haunted by trauma, he spirals into heroin addiction, finding himself among Tel Aviv’ s community of misfit junkies – until a stray dog unexpectedly enters his life.
What follows is a raw, immersive journey through psychological anguish, fleeting hope, and the search for meaning in the wreckage of war. It is an emotionally difficult, heart-pounding read – a book that stays with you well after you turn the last page.
All three of these award-winning books are well-deserving of their honors, and I strongly encourage you to read them.
The Final Edit: The Distance We Inherit
October 14 Kissing Girls on Shabbat Sara Glass
November 11 Enormous Wings Laurie Frankel
December 9 Goyhood
Reuven Fenton
Each book can be borrowed at the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library and Resource Center at Shalom Park.
The CJE Book Club will again convene Wednesday, May 13, at 10:30 a. m. in Room A110 at Shalom Park. We will be discussing“ One Good Thing” by Georgia Hunter. For more information, please contact Sue Littauer at sueb. littauer @ jewishcharlotte. org.
|
By Elizabeth Johnson
There is a particular kind of inheritance that doesn’ t come with photographs or recipes or anything you can hold. It arrives in fragments. In stories half-told at a table. In names you recognize but have never met. In places you have never been but feel you should understand.
The film“ A Real Pain” sits squarely in that space.
On its surface, the plot follows two cousins, played by Jesse Eisenberg( who wrote and directed the film) and Kieran Culkin( who won the 2025 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), traveling to Poland on a Jewish heritage tour, hoping to understand the life their grandmother
|
left behind.
It is a premise that could easily tip into something heavy-handed. Instead, the film does something far more honest. It allows discomfort to sit. It lets humor interrupt grief. It resists the urge to explain.
The film has sparked conversation for its tone, refusing to separate humor from history and asking whether that discomfort is the point. What emerges is not a story about the past but about our uneasy relationship with it.
One cousin arrives prepared, eager to do the trip“ correctly.” The other moves through the experience with volatility and openness, asking questions no one quite wants to answer. Together
|
, they embody something familiar: the tension between wanting to honor history and not knowing how to carry it.
The film’ s power lies in what it refuses to resolve. There are no sweeping conclusions, no tidy lessons. Instead, there are moments: a glance, a silence that stretches too long, the recognition that standing in a place where something happened does not grant understanding.
For many Jewish families, this tension is not theoretical. It is lived. We inherit stories shaped by displacement, resilience, loss, and rebuilding. We are asked to remember, even when details are incomplete; to feel connected, even when the distance is real.
|
“ A Real Pain” does not offer an answer. What it lends is something more useful: permission to sit in the ambiguity.
Late in the film, the weight of everything unspoken rises to the surface. It is not dramatic. No music swells. No speech ties it together. It lingers, asking what it means to carry something that cannot be fully understood.
That question feels particularly resonant this time of year. May, recognized as Jewish American Heritage Month, often invites reflection on contributions and history.
Yet there is another layer, one harder to articulate: how we live with what we have inherited What do we keep? What do we
|
pass on? And what do we do with what remains unresolved?
If the film suggests anything, it is that there is no singular way to answer those questions. For some, connection comes through ritual. For others, through travel or storytelling. And for many, it exists in the quiet negotiation between past and present.
By the time the film ends, there is no sense of closure. And that, perhaps, is the point. Because inheritance is not something we finish; it is something we continue.
“ A Real Pain” is streaming on Hulu and available to rent on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.”
|