I recently read David Roskies’ book, The Search for a Usable Jewish Past, and from its pages I noted the following books or authors to read:
Ahad Ha’am
S. Y. Agnon, The Bridal Canopy, A Simple Story, A Guest for the Night
Alter, Modern Hebrew Literature
S. Ansky, Between Two Worlds, or The Dybbuk
Sholem Asch, The Psalm Jew, The Nazarene
Sholem Asch, The Shtetl
Rachel Auerbach, in The Literature of Destruction
Isaac Babel, Red Calvary
Bialik, “In the City of Slaughter”
Boyarin, From a Ruined Garden
Boyarin, Storm from Paradise
Simon Dubnov
Rokhl Feigenberg, Chronicle of a Dead Town
Fein, Selected Poems of Bialik
Finkelstein, Akiba: Scholar, Saint, and Martyr
Glatstein, Anthology of Holocaust Literature
Chaim Grade, The Agunah, The Yeshiva
M. L. Halpern
Howe, Treasury of Yiddish Stories
Howe, Voices from the Yiddish
Huberband, Kiddush Hashem
Zelig Kalmanovitsh
Chaim Kaplan
Katznelson, Vittel Diaries
Kermish, To Live and Die with Honor
Rokhl Korn, Earth
Mani Leib
Lewin, A Cup of Tears
Ber Mark, Scrolls of Auschwitz
Mintz, In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov
Mintz, Hurban Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature
Miron, Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler
Nahman of Bratislava, Tales
S. Niger
Yehoshua Perle
Polen, The Holy Fire: Teachings of Rabbi Shapira
Chaim Potok, The Chosen
Theo Richmond, Konin: A Quest
Leyb Rochman, The Pit and the Trap
H. Roth, Call it Sleep
Roth, The Counterlife
Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism
Bruno Schultz
Shabtai, Past Continuous
I.J. Singer, Yoshe Kalb
Singer, Satan in Goray
Spielgelman, Mauss
Milton Steinberg, As a Driven Leaf
I.J. Trunk
I.M. Weissenberg
Wirth-Nesher, What is Jewish Literature?
Wisse, Modern Jewish Canon
Yerushalmi, Zakhor
S. Yizhar, Hirbet Hizeh
Zborowski, Life is with People
Zerubvel, Recovered Roots
Chaim Zhitlowsky
