The Sisterhood Book Club meets the 2nd Monday of the month @ 1:30pm. The only requirement is a love of reading and interest in discussing what we have read.
Our upcoming selections are:

September 12th @ the home of Arline Mehr we will be discussing "Wench" by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. It is a pre Civil War novel that deals with white Southern men and their enslaved black mistresses when the men take their mistresses/slaves into free territory. It presents the women with the choice of freeing slavery; but, also fleeing the men they have come to love.

October 10th our selection is "Juliet " by Ann Fortier. It bobs and weaves between Shakespearean tragedy and popular romance for a high-flying debut in which American Julie Jacobs travels to Sienna in search of her Italian heritage--possibly an inheritance--only to discover she is descended from 14th century Giulietta Tomei, whose love for Romeo defies their feuding families

and inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
November 14th our selection is "Color of Water" by James McBride. This beautifully written exploration of race, family, and identity, juxtaposing the author's experience with his mother's stories. As a young black boy in Brooklyn, James McBride wondered why his mother looked different. When he asked her if she was white or black she would answer, "I'm light-skinned." Finally, when he had become an adult, she told him her story. She was a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland, raised in the American South married to a black man.
December 12th the selection is "The Balfour Declaration: the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" by Jonathan Schneer. This controversial 1917 document is set in its historical context, conscientiously tracing the interests and motives of Turks, Arabs, Jews, and the English. This is a crucial book to understanding the Middle East to it is today. It will also be read and discussed by Adult Ed.

For 2012:

“Wherever You Go" by Joan Leegant. The story follows three Americans in Jerusalem and shines a light on one of the most pressing issues in Israeli society today: Jewish extremist groups and their threat to the modern democratic state. Reform Judaism has named it one of 2011's significant Jewish Books.

Daughters Victorious: a Dramatization of the Torah story of the Daughters of Zelapheahad based on teaching from the Talmud and Midrash. It is the fictional journey into the lives of five brave and determined sisters who transformed Judaism and women's rights when they fought for their property and educational rights. The result of which can be seen in Judaism's laws of inheritance. All of this happening 3,000 years before the most advanced Western civilizations acted in a similar manner.
Emancipation: How liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto led to Revolution and Renaissance" by Michael Goldfarb. Freed from their ghettos, Jews ushered in a second renaissance. Within a century Marx, Freud, and Einstein created revolutions in politics, human science, and phsics that continue to shape our world. Proust, Schoenberg, Mahler and Kafka redefined artistic expression.
Emancipation reformed the practice of Judaism, encouraged some to imagine a modern nation of their own, and within decades led to the dream of Zionism.

"Sacred Trash: the lost and found wold of the Cairo Geniza." by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. An extraordinary tale of intellectual adventure and lasting scholarly accomplishment. he men and women who brought the Cairo Geniza to light are presented in painstaking detail, their quirks and their brilliance exposed in equal measure. With the discovery if the Cairo Geniza, medieval Jewish life in all its sacred and mundane efforescence came tumbling out in thousands of manuscript fragments.

"Start-Up Nation: the Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. START-UP NATION addresses the trillion dollar question: How is it that Israel-- a country of 7.1 million, only 60 years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources-- produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada and the UK?
With the savvy of foreign policy insiders, Senor and Singer examine the lessons of the country's adversity-driven culture, which flattens hierarchy and elevates informality-- all backed up by government policies focused on innovation. In a world where economies as diverse as Ireland, Singapore and Dubai have tried to re-create the "Israel effect", there are entrepreneurial lessons well worth noting. As America reboots its own economy and can-do spirit, there's never been a better time to look at this remarkable and resilient nation for some impressive, surprising clues.

"The Fortune Teller's Kiss" by Brenda Serotte. An acclaimed memoir of growing up a Turkish Jew in a fortune-telling, belly-dancing family. The author describes her Sephardic life, the foods, fear of the evil eye and her struggle to walk again after polio. A finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, a joy to read.