The quest for Jewish nationhood is entwined with the exercise of imagination. Theodor Herzl’s best-known words, “If you will it, it is no dream” (or, translated more accurately from the original German, “it is no fairy tale”) attest to the nature of Zionism as the fulfillment of a fantasy. And we tend to forget that…
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Books
Author! Author!
S.F. author’s short, short stories are long on emotion
The cover of this book, a slim collection of very short stories by San Francisco writer Mark Russell Gelade, reflects a minor publication by a small art…
Philanthropy
Koret biography reveals the man behind the fortune
The story of San Francisco businessman and philanthropist Joseph Koret is a real rags-to-riches tale. From an early life of scarcity in…
Kids & Family
Artist’s first kids’ book is a yawner — in a good way
So you think falling asleep is a grown-up problem? Not so, says Rebecca Whipple Silverstein, 37, author of an artful new children’s book that approaches…
Poetry
Reading by accomplished poet/writer/critic Jake Marmer
Jake Marmer is a Jewish poet, performer and educator who immigrated from Ukraine at 15 and lived for many years in New York — a city he still calls home.…
Off the Shelf
Jewish characters navigate a complex world
From Abraham onward, the vision of leaving home for something better is a familiar trope in Jewish history and literature. Two superbly written new novels…
History
Ed Zerin, the 98-year-old who wrote the book on “Jewish San Francisco”
Ten books, three languages, two bar mitzvahs — Rabbi Edward Zerin has seen a lot in his 98 years. Now people are gathering to celebrate his erudite life…
Author! Author!
New memoir: Nepalese royalty, the Six-Day War and Passover in Japan
A new book with an exuberantly peripatetic theme is “Eyeballing Big Croc: Chasing Dreams Around the World,” by Pacifica writer Vivien Zielen, whose life…
Theater
'The Chosen': frozen in time, or still relevant?
When playwright Aaron Posner was seeking a Jewish-themed book to adapt for the stage in the late 1990s, he went to the author Chaim Potok for advice. To…