Questioning Return
A Novel
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Mandel Vilar Press
Published:29th Dec '16
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
MVP will produce 100 ARCs and/or Digital Review copies to be sent to our usual list of media and blog outlets for fiction/Jewish fiction and to all those journals, newspapers, blogs and organizations related to Israel and religious institutions (the latter list is not ready and is being compiled now) Traditional Mainstream and Jewish media list as follows SHORT LEADS: The Denver Post Chicago Tribune Atlanta Journal Constitution The New York Review of Books The New York Times The Jewish Wek The Washington Post The Washington Times San Francisco Chronicle Tablet USA Today Midwest Book Review San Francisco Examiner The Jewish news Weekly of Northern CA Los Angeles Review of Books New York Post The American Jewish World Minneapolis Star Tribune Commonweal The Boston Globe American Scholar Manhattan Book Review Bookforum The Philadelphia Inquirer Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles The Reporter Group The Daily Beast The Huffington Post The Forward Columbia College Today New York Journal of Books New York Daily News New York Metro BookTrib Boston Herald The Jewish Advocate Jewish Exponent Jewish Book Council/Visiting Scribe Series JEWISH NEWSPAPERS CONTACTED: Empire Publishing Corporation Los Angeles Jewish News Jewish News of Greater Phoenix JUF News Arizona Jewish Post Jewish Herald-Voice Intermountain Jewish News Jewish Currents Chicago Jewish Star Texas Jewish Post The Jewish Chronicle Jewish Leader Kansas City Jewish Chronicle Washington Jewish Week The Cleveland Jewish News Baltimore Jewish Times New Jersey Jewish Media Group The Cleveland Jewish News Heritage Florida Jewish News South Florida Jewish Journal LONG LEADS: Kirkus Reviews Library Journal Publishers Weekly Booklist The Wall Street Journal New York Times Book Review New York Times Bloomsbury Review Chicago Tribune Foreword Reviews The Jewish Forward LA Times Washington Post Bookforum AARP Magazine Poets & Writers New York Review of Books San Francisco Chronicle O, The Oprah Magazine Shelf Awareness Leonard Lopate Show – with link to Robert’s obituary and angle of discussing fiction and nonfiction writing NPR, Weekend Edition – with link to Robert’s obituary and angle of discussing fiction and nonfiction writing Diane Rehm – with link to Robert’s obituary and angle of discussing fiction and nonfiction writing Commonweal Los Angeles Review of Books Boston Globe The Jewish Week Tablet Columbia Magazine Slate Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles Center for Fiction Moment Magazine New York Magazine Rain Taxi Review of Books The Brooklyn Rail The Believer ESPN Online Electric Literature Hadassah Magazine Harper’s Houston Chronicle Jewish Book World Hemispheres Rhapsody Salon Tampa Bay Times The Atlantic Barnes & Noble Review The Daily Beast Dallas Morning News Jewish Review of Books The Ring Manhattan Book Review USA Today LA Daily News (Tim Rutten) BLOGS: St. Louis Book Blog - St. Louis Post-Dispatch The New York Times Arts Beat blog Book Nook Bookviews by Alan Caruba The Best Reviews The Literary Saloon MyShelf.com Lost For Words So Many Books Book Patrol Night Owl Reviews Shelf Unbound My Book Addiction and More! Book Pleasures Booklist Online Armchair Interviews Pop Goes Fiction Novel Rocket Historical Novels Review Biblio File BookRiot USA Book News BookTrib Vancouver Sun Books Blog On Books Book Snob JBronderBookReviews Babbling About Books and More Rhapsody in Books Good Books & Good Wine S. Krishna's Books A Bookish Affair PhiloBiblos Unshelved A Bookworm's World Bookslut Thrifty Reader Bookshipper Gossamer Obessions Omnivoracious BookLoons Literary Magic Bookgasm Beth's Book Reviews The Story Siren Gently Read Literature Everyday I Write The Book The Reading Matters/Charlotte Observer Fresh Fiction Postcards From Purgatory Bustle The Librarian That Doesn't Say Shhh Beth Fish Reads Big Al's Books and Pals BTS Book Review The Broke and the Bookish Blue Stalking A Dream Within a Dream Luxury Reading Booksies Blog 5 Minutes for Books The Millions A Little Blog of Books The Skimm As her long resume will reveal, Ms. Kissileff writes for over 50 national, international, Jewish and Israel oriented journals and magazines--she is a highly sought after journalist who will use her contacts to generate interviews and reviews MVP will collaborated and cooperate with the NY Jewish Book Council and Jewish Book Network. Ms. Kissileff will make a presentation in May to the 100 managers of Jewish Book Fairs from across the United States with the hope of securing invitations as a speaker in the fall (October thru December 2016) Ads will be placed in key Jewish publications and national media outlets. PLUS Over 625,000 Americans visited Israel this past year--many of them through travel organization and groups which specialize in visits to Israel. This novel would be a good and entertaining introduction to those visitors. We will promote to these organizations and their members.
A year in Jerusalem questioning American Jews who return” to Israel and to traditional religion changes Wendy Goldberg's life forever.
A year in Jerusalem questioning American Jews who "return" to Israel and to traditional religion changes Wendy Goldberg's life forever.
Every year, 700,000 Americans visit Israel. Wendy Goldberg spends a year in Jerusalem questioning the lives of American Jews who do "Aliya"a return both to Israel itself and to traditional religious practices. Are they sincere? Are they happier? The unexpected answers and Wendy's experiences (a bus bombing, a funeral, an unexpected suicide, a love affair, and a lawsuit) lead her to reconsider her own true Jewish identity.
The ambitious graduate student is certain she's on the path to academic glory. But from the moment her plane takes off Wendy is confronted with unanswerable questions of faith and identity. As she becomes immersed in the rhythm of Israeli life, her sense of distance from it fades. Her ability to be an outside observer terminates abruptly when a student commits a horrible act immediately after his interview with her. Wendy is not sure how or if she is implicated in his action, but in her search for understanding, she is led to knowledge and love in unforeseen places.
Beth Kissileff, a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has received fellowships from Yaddo and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has taught at Carleton College, the University of Minnesota, Smith College, and Mount Holyoke College. Her fiction and nonfiction on Israeli cultural, literary, and religious topics appears regularly in many publications including the New York Times, The Forward, and The Jerusalem Post. She also the editor of a new book, Reading Genesis: Beginnings.
"The year in Jerusalem you never had! I opened this book intrigued by its skeptical question: why do people become religious? But as Kissileff guided me on my year abroad, I discovered, along with her complicated characters, that the only stupid question is one that has an answer. A sensitive, nuanced, and believable journey to a place, both physical and spiritual, that feels utterly real."Dara Horn, author of A Guide for the Perplexed, A Novel, The World to Come, All Other Nights, and In the Image, A Novel "The brainy, conflicted heroine of Beth Kissileff's heart-stirring debut novel Questioning Return goes to Israel to interview baalei teshuvah, Jews who have come home to a tradition once lost to them. The process launches her on an intellectual, spiritual, and romantic adventure that will change your understanding of what it means to truly belong. An eloquent and absorbing achievement."Steve Stern, author of The Pinch, A Novel, Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven, The Wedding Jester, The Book of Mischief and The Frozen Rabbi Can people change? It seems they do, but how and why? In Beth Kissileff’s lovely, widely-learned, and brooding debut novel, Questioning Return, Princeton graduate student Wendy Goldberg sets off to Jerusalem to propose these questions to others. Unexpectedly, the young scholar finds herself the one questioned while returning to things at once ancient and always new: the porous boundaries between love and passion, the possibilities of transformative faith, and the mysterious nature of holiness in a place that itself seems a living thing to those who have eyes for it.--Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of The Far Euphrates and The Illuminated Soul -- "Questioning Return is a fiercely intelligent and, yes, wise novel. The story of a young woman's attempt to understand the meaning of 'return' becomes a tale of complex, memorable, and transformative beginnings. This is a novel as rich in the questions it probes as it is in the characters it renders. Beth Kissileff is a fearless, wonderful new writer--a gifted storyteller whose novel is as strong as it is tender." Jay Neugeboren, author of Max Baer And The Star of David, Imagining Robert, Stolen Rabbi, and You Are My Heart and Other Stories Questioning Return brilliantly portrays the intellectual and religious life of Jerusalem, as an aspiring young scholar grapples with the tension between academic study and traditional Jewish learning. No other novel so vividly portrays the religious life of young Americans seeking a life of traditional Jewish observance and Torah study in contemporary Jerusalem. Sabbaths, holidays, and daily rituals spring to life through a coming-of-age story of a young woman’s struggle to combine her academic aspirations with a quest for spiritual fulfillment.”Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Skirball Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, New York University, author of Stories of the Babylonian Talmud and Rabbinic Stories.
"The year in Jerusalem you never had! I opened this book intrigued by its skeptical question: why do people become religious? But as Kissileff guided me on my year abroad, I discovered, along with her complicated characters, that the only stupid question is one that has an answer. A sensitive, nuanced, and believable journey to a place, both physical and spiritual, that feels utterly real."—Dara Horn, author of A Guide for the Perplexed, A Novel, The World to Come, All Other Nights, and In the Image, A Novel "The brainy, conflicted heroine of Beth Kissileff's heart-stirring debut novel Questioning Return goes to Israel to interview baalei teshuvah, Jews who have come home to a tradition once lost to them. The process launches her on an intellectual, spiritual, and romantic adventure that will change your understanding of what it means to truly belong. An eloquent and absorbing achievement."—Steve Stern, author of The Pinch, A Novel, Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven, The Wedding Jester, The Book of Mischief and The Frozen Rabbi Can people change? It seems they do, but how and why? In Beth Kissileff’s lovely, widely-learned, and brooding debut novel, Questioning Return, Princeton graduate student Wendy Goldberg sets off to Jerusalem to propose these questions to others. Unexpectedly, the young scholar finds herself the one questioned while returning to things at once ancient and always new: the porous boundaries between love and passion, the possibilities of transformative faith, and the mysterious nature of holiness in a place that itself seems a living thing to those who have eyes for it.--Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of The Far Euphrates and The Illuminated Soul -- "Questioning Return is a fiercely intelligent and, yes, wise novel. The story of a young woman's attempt to understand the meaning of 'return' becomes a tale of complex, memorable, and transformative beginnings. This is a novel as rich in the questions it probes as it is in the characters it renders. Beth Kissileff is a fearless, wonderful new writer--a gifted storyteller whose novel is as strong as it is tender." —Jay Neugeboren, author of Max Baer And The Star of David, Imagining Robert, Stolen Rabbi, and You Are My Heart and Other Stories “Questioning Return brilliantly portrays the intellectual and religious life of Jerusalem, as an aspiring young scholar grapples with the tension between academic study and traditional Jewish learning. No other novel so vividly portrays the religious life of young Americans seeking a life of traditional Jewish observance and Torah study in contemporary Jerusalem. Sabbaths, holidays, and daily rituals spring to life through a coming-of-age story of a young woman’s struggle to combine her academic aspirations with a quest for spiritual fulfillment.”—Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Skirball Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, New York University, author of Stories of the Babylonian Talmud and Rabbinic Stories.
ISBN: 9781942134237
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 552g
374 pages