Four new Jewish novels recommended by Israel’s National Library

Three of the four novels shortlisted for the National Library of Israel's Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature are debut novels – and the fourth is only the author's second novel.

While last year's winner was the controversial non-fiction book, Palestine 1936 by Oren Kessler, this year the judges have returned to the prize's traditional fare, choosing novels that explore various facets of contemporary, historical and even possible future Jewish lives.

The prize will be announced later this month. The shortlisted novels are:

The story: Hannah and Eric Rosenthal are devout Jews living in North London with their three children and Eric’s father Yosef, a Holocaust survivor. Both intellectually gifted and deeply unconventional, the Rosenthals believe in the literal truth of the Old Testament and in the presence of God (and evil) in daily life. As Hannah prepares to publish an account of Yosef's years in war-torn Europe — unearthing a terrible secret from his time in the camps — Elsie, her perfect daughter, starts to come undone. And then, in the wake of Yosef’s death, she disappears.

When she returns, just as mysteriously as she left, she is altered in disturbing ways. Witnessing the complete transformation of her daughter, Hannah begins to suspect that Elsie has delved too deep into the labyrinths of Jewish mysticism and gotten lost among shadows. But for Elsie’s brother, Tovyah, the truth is much simpler: his sister is the product of a dysfunctional family, obsessed with rituals, traditions, and unbridled ambition. But who is right? Is religion the cure for the disease or the disease itself? And how can they stop the darkness from engulfing Elsie completely?

The author: Toby Lloyd was born in London to a secular father and a Jewish mother, but now lives in the US. He studied English at Oxford University before moving to America to pursue an MFA in creative writing at NYU. Fervor is his first novel.

You'll enjoy it if... you like mysticism and folk tales, and if you fancy an Isaac Bashevis Singer vibe with a Stephen King plot.

The story: When a black hole suddenly consumes Israel, and as mysterious anomalies spread across the globe, suddenly the world teeters on the brink of chaos. As antisemitic paranoia and violence escalate, Jewish citizens Ethan and Ella find themselves navigating a landscape fraught with danger and uncertainty.

Ella, a dedicated photojournalist, captures the shifting dynamics of their nameless American city, documenting the resilience and struggles of its Jewish residents. Some are drawn to the anomalies, disappearing into an abandoned subway system that seems to connect the world, while others form militias in the south. Yet, Ethan, Ella, and her young son Michael, choose to remain, seeking solace in small joys amidst the hostility.

But then, thousands of commercial planes vanish from the sky. Air travel stops. Borders close. Refugees pour into the capital. Eventually all Jews in the city are forced to relocate to the Pale, an area sandwiched between a park and a river. There, under the watchful eye of border guards, drones, and robotic dogs, they form a fragile new society.

The author: Benjamin Resnick is the rabbi of the Pelham Jewish Center in New York. Ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, he lives in Pelham with his family. Next Stop is his first novel.

You'll enjoy it if... you like the speculative fiction of Michael Chabon and Lavie Tidhar.

The story: Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended.

In 1941, Yefim is a young artillerist on the border between the Soviet Union and Germany, eager to defend his country and his large Jewish family against Hitler's forces. But surviving the war requires sacrifices Yefim never imagined – and even when the war ends, his fight isn't over. He must conceal his choices from the KGB and from his family.

Spanning seven decades between World War II and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, Your Presence Is Mandatory traces the effect Yefim's coverup had on the lives of Nina, their two children and grandchildren. In the process, Sasha Vasilyuk shines a light on one family caught between two totalitarian regimes, and the grace they find in the course of their survival.

The author: Sasha Vasilyuk grew up in Ukraine and Russia before immigrating to San Francisco at the age of 13. Her non-fiction work has been published in The New York Times, CNN, Harper’s Bazaar, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She has won several awards, including the Solas Award for Best Travel Writing, NATJA award, and BAM/PFA Fellowship from UC Berkeley. Your Presence Is Mandatory is her debut novel.

You'll enjoy it if... you like fiction that explores the struggle of individuals against totalitarianism from Franz Kafka to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The story: In an impoverished village in White Russia, Raizel Shulman needs to find a way to save her three young sons from being drafted into the Czar’s army. Before splitting them up forever, she pens a poem with three short verses. A different fate awaits the descendants of each, as one will immigrate to America, a second will leave for Palestine, and a third will perish in the Holocaust. Through it all, the poem accompanies them, a silent, mysterious token from a place lost in time.

In seven episodes, moving backward through the tumult of the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, Raziel’s descendants make fateful choices as they struggle to reconcile their identities, their dreams, and the constraints of their time and place. Their stories play out on a reality set in rural Belarus, 1960s Tel Aviv, a pre-independence kibbutz, 1930s Chicago, pre-war Vilna, turn-of-the-century Minsk, and finally, in the tiny shtetl of Prepoisk, not as one overriding narrative, but as a collection of small, intimate histories.

The author: Janice Weizman moved to Israel from Toronto at age 19. She is the author of the award-winning historical novel, The Wayward Moon. She served for 10 years as fiction editor for The Ilanot Review, and now curates the book review website, Reading Jewish Fiction. Our Little Histories is her second novel.

You'll enjoy it if... you like Jewish historical novels like the work of Diane Armstrong or Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book.