Best Jewish Historical Fiction Books
Here you will get Best Jewish Historical Fiction Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel
Author: by Heather Morris
B0756DZ4C1
Harper Paperbacks
September 4, 2018
The #1 International Bestseller & New York Times BestsellerThis beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolovan unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is an extraordinary document, a story about the extremes of human behavior existing side by side: calculated brutality alongside impulsive and selfless acts of love.
I find it hard to imagine anyone who would not be drawn in, confronted and moved. I would recommend it unreservedly to anyone, whether they’d read a hundred Holocaust stories or none. Graeme Simsion, internationally-bestselling author of The Rosie ProjectIn April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Ttowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarismbut also incredible acts of bravery and compassion.
2. The Girls in the Attic
Author: by Marius Gabriel
B08LMN5TVG
June 1, 2021
English
The bestselling author of The Designer presents a sweeping story of blind faith, family allegiance and how love makes one man question everything he thought he knew. Max Wolff is a committed soldier of the Reich. So when he is sent home wounded, only to discover that his mother is sheltering two young Jewish women in their home, he is outraged.
His mother’s act of mercy is a gross betrayal of everything Max stands for. He has dedicated his life to Nazism, fighting to atone for the shame of his anti-Hitler father’s imprisonment. It’s his duty to turn the sisters over to the Gestapo.
But he hesitates, and the longer Max fails to do his duty, the harder it becomes. When Allied bombers fill the skies of Germany, Max is forced to abandon all dogma and face the brutality of war in order to defend precious lives.
But what will it cost him?
3. The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
Author: by Joshua Cohen
English
248 pages
1681376075
A job interview goes awry for the exiled patriarch of Israel’s First Family in this riotous novel from one of contemporary fiction’s most brilliant and audacious writers. Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 19591960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historianbut not an historian of the Jewsis co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition.
When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers.
4. The Flight Portfolio: A novel
Author: by Julie Orringer
B07GNRSFGN
Vintage (May 7, 2019)
May 7, 2019
MARSEILLE, 1940.Varian Fry, a Harvard-educated journalist and editor, arrives in France. Recognizing the darkness descending over Europe, he and a group of like-minded New Yorkers formed the Emergency Rescue Committee, helping artists and writers escape from the Nazis and immigrate to the United States.
Now, amid the chaos of World War II, and in defiance of restrictive U.S. Immigration policies, Fry must procure false passports, secure visas, seek out escape routes through the Pyrenees and by sea, and make impossible decisions about who should be saved, all while under profound pressureand in a state of irrevocable personal change.
In this dazzling work of historical fictionone that illuminates previously unexplored elements of Fry’s story, and has, since its publication, brought us new insight into his lifeJulie Orringer, award-winning author of The Invisible Bridge, has crafted a gripping tale of forbidden love, high-stakes adventure, and unimaginable courage.
5. The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz: A totally gripping and absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 page-turner, based on a true story
Author: by Ellie Midwood
Bookouture (March 5, 2021)
English
332 pages
We must die standing up for something. And what are we standing up for? The most important thing there is.Freedom. Millions of people walked through Auschwitz’s gates, but she was the first woman who escaped. This powerful novel tells the inspiring true story of Mala Zimetbaum, whose heroism will never be forgotten, and whose fate altered the course of history Nobody leaves Auschwitz alive.
Mala, inmate 19880, understood that the moment she stepped off the cattle train into the depths of hell. As an interpreter for the SS, she uses her position to save as many lives as she can, smuggling scraps of bread to those desperate with hunger.
Edward, inmate 531, is a camp veteran and a political prisoner. Though he looks like everyone else, with a shaved head and striped uniform, he’s a fighter in the underground Resistance. And he has an escape plan. They are locked up for no other sin than simply existing.
But when they meet, the dark shadow of Auschwitz is lit by a glimmer of hope. Edward makes Mala believe in the impossible. That despite being surrounded by electric wire, machine guns topping endless watchtowers and searchlights roaming the ground, they will leave this death camp.
6. Surviving The Forest (World War II Brave Women Fiction)
Author: by Adiva Geffen
English
230 pages
1796269409
Five shots on Saturday morning change their fate foreverShurka is a happy young woman who lives a fairy tale life with her beloved husband and their two young children, in a pretty house in a village in Poland. She believes that nothing can hurt them.
Or so she thinksThen, World War II breaks out and the happy family quickly understands that their happiness has come to a brutal end. The family is forced to flee their house and find shelter in a neighboring ghetto, where they come to realized that the Gestapo is taking Jews away on trucks every night, never to be seen again.
The family makes a brave and difficult choice to flee to the dark forest. There, surrounded by animals, they know that this is their only chance of escaping the real beasts. They have no idea what will await them, but they know that doing nothing is not an option if they wish to survive.
Surviving the Forest is the second book in the “World War II Brave Women” series
7. My Mother's Secret: A Novel Based on a True Holocaust Story
Author: by J.L. Witterick
Berkley
English
208 pages
Inspired by a true story, My Mother’s Secret is a captivating and ultimately uplifting tale intertwining the lives of two Jewish families in hiding from the Nazis, a fleeing German soldier, and the mother and daughter who save them all.
Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are simple, ordinary people… Until 1939, when the Nazis invade their homeland. Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland is a death sentence, but Franciszka and Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home in Sokal, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen, and a defecting German soldier in the atticeach party completely unknown to the others.
For everyone to survive, Franciszka will have to outsmart her neighbors and the German commander. Told simply and succinctly from four different perspectivesall under one roofMy Mother’s Secret is a testament to the kindness, courage, and generosity of ordinary people who chose to be extraordinary.
8. We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel
Author: by Georgia Hunter
Penguin Books
English
416 pages
The New York Times bestseller with more than 1 million copies sold worldwideInspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to surviveand to reuniteWe Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds.
Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn’t be more timely. Glamour It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer.
The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.
As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight.
9. Churchill's Secret Messenger: A WW2 Novel of Spies & the French Resistance
Author: by Alan Hlad
B08F2XLBCZ
April 27, 2021
English
A riveting story of World War II and the courage of one young woman as she is drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms, underneath Westminster’s Treasury building, civilian women huddle at desks, typing up confidential documents and reports.
Since her parents were killed in a bombing raid, Rose Teasdale has spent more hours than usual in Room 60, working double shifts, growing accustomed to the burnt scent of the Prime Minister’s cigars permeating the stale air. Winning the war is the only thing that matters, and she will gladly do her part.
And when Rose’s fluency in French comes to the attention of Churchill himself, it brings a rare yet dangerous opportunity. Rose is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe. After weeks of grueling training, Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly.
10. The Collaborator
Author: by Diane Armstrong
B08234V6RQ
January 1, 2020
English
An enthralling story of heroism, passion, and betrayal based on astonishing true events set in the darkest days of World War II in Budapest. For readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Alice Network and My Name is Eva. Budapest, 1944: The Germans have invaded.
Jewish journalist Miklos Nagy risks his life and confronts the dreaded Adolf Eichmann in an attempt save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. But no one could have foreseen the consequences… Sydney, 2005: Annika Barnett sets out on a journey that takes her to Budapest and Tel Aviv to discover the truth about the mysterious man who rescued her grandmother in 1944.
By the time her odyssey is over, history has been turned on its head, past and present collide, and the secret that has poisoned the lives of three generations is finally revealed in a shocking climax that holds the key to their redemption.
From USA Today bestselling author Diane Armstrong come a story of an act of heroism, the taint of collaboration, a doomed love affair, and an Australian woman who travels across the world to discover the truth…
11. The Red Tent
Author: by Anita Diamant
Picador
English
352 pages
In this modern classic interpretation of the biblical story of Dinah, Anita Diamant imagines the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood-the world of The Red Tent, a New York Times bestseller and the basis of the A&E/Lifetime mini-series.
Twentieth Anniversary Edition In the Bible, Dinah’s life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that tell of her father, Jacob, and his twelve sons. The Red Tent begins with the story of the mothers-Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah-the four wives of Jacob.
They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through childhood, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah’s story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past.
Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling and the valuable achievement of presenting a new view of biblical women’s lives.
12. The Source: A Novel
Author: by James A. Michener
Dial Press Trade Paperback
English
1104 pages
In his signature style of grand storytelling, James A. Michener transports us back thousands of years to the Holy Land. Through the discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in an ancient city and traces the profound history of the Jewish peoplefrom the persecution of the early Hebrews, the rise of Christianity, and the Crusades to the founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East.
An epic tale of love, strength, and faith, The Source is a richly written saga that encompasses the history of Western civilization and the great religious and cultural ideas that have shaped our world. Praise for The Source Fascinating …Stunning …
[a] wonderful rampage through history … Biblical history, as seen through the eyes of a professor who is puzzled, appalled, delighted, enriched and impoverished by the spectacle of a land where all men are archeologists. The New York Times A sweeping [novel] filled with excitementpagan ritual, the clash of armies, ancient and modern: the evolving drama of man’s faith.
13. Not Without My Sister: A compelling and heartbreaking WW2 historical novel
Author: by Marion Kummerow
B08QSDHH41
March 25, 2021
English
1944, Germany.Two sisters seek to overcome impossible odds to be reunited, in this utterly devastating and unforgettable novel about sisterhood, courage and survival. All they had left was each other. Until the Nazis tore them apart. After years of hiding from the Nazis, Rachel Epstein and her little sister Mindel are captured by the Gestapo and sent to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.
The only ray of light for either girl is that they are together. But on arrival they are separated. As she’s seventeen and deemed an adult, Rachel is sent to work in a brutal factory whilst four-year-old Mindel is sent into the so-called star camp for Jewish prisoners.
All on her own, Rachel knows her sister will have no chance of survivalunless she can find someone to take care of her. Working in the windowless, airless factoryfilling munitions casings with chemicals that burn her fingers and make her eyes stingthe only thing that keeps Rachel going is the thought of her little sister.
14. The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel (Harper Perennial Olive Editions)
Author: by Helene Wecker
B008QXVDJ0
Harper
April 23, 2013
An intoxicating fusion of fantasy and historical fiction…. Wecker’s storytelling skills dazzle.” Entertainment WeeklyA marvelous and absorbing debut novel about a chance meeting between two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic.
She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in.
Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free.
An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world. Chava and Ahmad meet accidentally and become friends and soul mates despite their opposing natures. But when the golem’s violent nature overtakes her one evening, their bond is challenged.
15. The Watchmaker of Dachau: An absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel
Author: by Carly Schabowski
English
280 pages
1838886419
An unforgettable novel of human kindness, inspired by an incredible true story. Snow falls and a woman prepares for a funeral she has long expected, yet hoped would never come. As she pats her hair and straightens her skirt, she tells herself this isn’t the first time she’s lost someone.
Lifting a delicate, battered wristwatch from a little box on her dresser, she presses it to her cheek. Suddenly, she’s lost in memory January 1945, Dachau, Germany. As the train rattles through the bright, snowy Bavarian countryside, the still beauty outside the window hides the terrible scenes inside the train, where men and women are packed together, cold and terrified.
Jewish watchmaker Isaac Schller can’t understand how he came to be here, and is certain he won’t be leaving alive. When the prisoners arrive at Dachau concentration camp, Isaac is unexpectedly pulled from the crowd and installed in the nearby household of Senior Officer Becher and his young, pretty, spoiled wife.
With his talent for watchmaking, Isaac can be of use to Becher, but he knows his life is only worth something here as long as Becher needs his skills. Anna Reznick waits table and washes linens for the Bechers, who dine and socialise and carry on as if they don’t constantly have death all around them.
16. The Devil's Arithmetic (Puffin Modern Classics)
Author: by Jane Yolen
0142401099
Puffin Books
English
30th Anniversary edition with a new introduction from the author Hannah is tired of holiday gatheringsall her family ever talks about is the past. In fact, it seems to her that’s what they do every Jewish holiday. But this year’s Passover Seder will be differentHannah will be mysteriously transported into the past …
And only she knows the unspeakable horrors that await. Winner of the National Jewish Book Award”A triumphantly moving book.” -Kirkus Reviews, starred review
