Searching For Good Jewish Literature

Ideonaut

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one of the greatest writers who is Jewish is Philip Roth.

American Pastoral would be a start. It is amazing.

If you want an incredible story of an immigrant, a masterpiece, another Roth, Henry Roth's Call It Sleep. OMG.

A VERY fast-moving amazing book that is both tawdry and also a masterpiece is Harold Robbins, A Stone For Danny Fisher. He was a writer of "cheap" thrillers but actually a magnificent story teller and this coming of age book is really fantastic. Carpetbaggers, The Adventurers, The Betsy. One of the all-time bestselling authors in the world.

For thrillers, Sidney Sheldon was great. Master of the Game, If Tomorrow Comes, Bloodline, all fantastic thrillers.

So there is a range of Jewish fiction, including quality to fun-to-read.
Oh yes, Phillip Roth is great. I liked the part in Portnoy's Complaint where he is beating off and squirts semen onto the lightbulb. So clever and edifying, so typical! It's definitely a smart idea to seek out authors from this group; they're so special. Arthur Koestler's biography of Kepler is very good.
 
OP
Broken man

Broken man

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Thank you for all your ideas. Few weeks ago, I found book about Albert Einstein and fall in love with him :D.
 

LUH 3417

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I got an A in philosophy because I proved my professor doesn’t exist.

What do men want? Men want a mattress that cooks.

I turned down a date once because I was looking for someone a little closer to the top of the food chain.

-Judy Tenuta, founder of Judyism
 

Nicole W.

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Do you know about some book which describes Torah but in smaller version? I think that I cant read and understand all 5 books when I am not jewish. Thank you.
The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred Kolatch is very helpful for anyone wanting to better understand the Jewish faith, culture and identity. It’s a pretty easy, but informative, read.
 

x-ray peat

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Oh yes, Phillip Roth is great. I liked the part in Portnoy's Complaint where he is beating off and squirts semen onto the lightbulb. So clever and edifying, so typical! It's definitely a smart idea to seek out authors from this group; they're so special.
I would also second that Philip Roth is a degenerate and a mind worm of alienation and despair, with the added benefit of perversion. But judging a whole people based on this one guy is extremely unfair to say the least.
 
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zewe

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@Broken man: love your avatar; one of my favorite movies. Saw your thread and couldn't help resurrecting it. Spent 23 years with a book club of voracious
readers like myself.

Okay, Jewish authors and books I've read. Got to agree on Roth's, "American Pastoral." The movie could not due this justice!
Also by Philp Roth, "The Human Stain."

A Mix of Fiction and Non Fiction:

Emma Goldman, "Living My Life."

Alfred Doblin, "A People Betrayed."

Joseph Heller, "Catch-22."

Mark Helprin, "A Winter's Tale."

Chaim Potok, "The Chosen."

Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged," and "The Fountainhead."

Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock."

Elie Wiesel, "Night."

Franz Kafka, "The Trial," and "The Metamorphosis."

Isaac Asimov, "Foundation Trilogy."

Saul Bellow, "The Adventures of Augie March," "Herzog," and "Humboldt's Gift."

Victor E. Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning." Everyone should read this.

Wladyslaw Szpilman, "The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945."

Irene Nemirovsky, "Suite Francaise."

William Styron, "Sophie's Choice," and "The Confessions of Nat Turner."

Lillian Hellman, "The Children's Hour," "Little Foxes," and "Toys in the Attic." also: "Pentimento."

Bruno Bettelheim, "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales."

Allen Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind."

Barbara W. Tuchman, "The Guns of August," and "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century."


Any other contributions? I think I need to delve into something other than health related articles/papers!
 
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@Broken man: love your avatar; one of my favorite movies. Saw your thread and couldn't help resurrecting it. Spent 23 years with a book club of voracious
readers like myself.

Okay, Jewish authors and books I've read. Got to agree on Roth's, "American Pastoral." The movie could not due this justice!
Also by Philp Roth, "The Human Stain."

A Mix of Fiction and Non Fiction:

Emma Goldman, "Living My Life."

Alfred Doblin, "A People Betrayed."

Joseph Heller, "Catch-22."

Mark Helprin, "A Winter's Tale."

Chaim Potok, "The Chosen."

Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged," and "The Fountainhead."

Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock."

Elie Wiesel, "Night."

Franz Kafka, "The Trial," and "The Metamorphosis."

Isaac Asimov, "Foundation Trilogy."

Saul Bellow, "The Adventures of Augie March," "Herzog," and "Humboldt's Gift."

Victor E. Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning." Everyone should read this.

Wladyslaw Szpilman, "The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945."

Irene Nemirovsky, "Suite Francaise."

William Styron, "Sophie's Choice," and "The Confessions of Nat Turner."

Lillian Hellman, "The Children's Hour," "Little Foxes," and "Toys in the Attic." also: "Pentimento."

Bruno Bettelheim, "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales."

Allen Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind."

Barbara W. Tuchman, "The Guns of August," and "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century."


Any other contributions? I think I need to delve into something other than health related articles/papers!

Elie Wiesel was a fraud (not unlike many other alleged holocaust survivors who published successful narratives post-war) and was exposed by Alexander Cockburn in this article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/truth-and-fiction-in-elie-wiesels-night-2/.

To the OP, among these suggestions one can find the worldview of the jewish plebeian. To learn the worldview of the jewish patrician, that has been in place since 1945, read the Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein.
 

gaze

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:handok:
@Broken man: love your avatar; one of my favorite movies. Saw your thread and couldn't help resurrecting it. Spent 23 years with a book club of voracious
readers like myself.

Okay, Jewish authors and books I've read. Got to agree on Roth's, "American Pastoral." The movie could not due this justice!
Also by Philp Roth, "The Human Stain."

A Mix of Fiction and Non Fiction:

Emma Goldman, "Living My Life."

Alfred Doblin, "A People Betrayed."

Joseph Heller, "Catch-22."

Mark Helprin, "A Winter's Tale."

Chaim Potok, "The Chosen."

Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged," and "The Fountainhead."

Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock."

Elie Wiesel, "Night."

Franz Kafka, "The Trial," and "The Metamorphosis."

Isaac Asimov, "Foundation Trilogy."

Saul Bellow, "The Adventures of Augie March," "Herzog," and "Humboldt's Gift."

Victor E. Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning." Everyone should read this.

Wladyslaw Szpilman, "The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945."

Irene Nemirovsky, "Suite Francaise."

William Styron, "Sophie's Choice," and "The Confessions of Nat Turner."

Lillian Hellman, "The Children's Hour," "Little Foxes," and "Toys in the Attic." also: "Pentimento."

Bruno Bettelheim, "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales."

Allen Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind."

Barbara W. Tuchman, "The Guns of August," and "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century."


Any other contributions? I think I need to delve into something other than health related articles/papers!

great list, the chosen by chaim potok is one of my all time favorite books despite me not being religious, and anything by kaftka is :handok:.
 

Gone Peating

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Sep 16, 2018
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I was never impressed with almost any of the Jewish literature I read. Most things we read in college were written by Jews, and I came to realize they have a disgusting worldview and view of human nature and they think that everyone needs to be controlled in order to be “good”.

They have still never gotten over the bare bones of the Mosaic Law, they completely missed the spirit of the law and still to this day most of them do. They think salvation lies in their external actions, words, philosophies, etc and not simply what’s really in their hearts.

I do also feel bad for them. It can’t be easy being raised taught that “You are a Jew! You’re special, a child of God” surmising that that means those who aren’t Jewish are therefore not God’s chosen. It must be difficult to reconcile deep down in their minds and I feel that’s why so many of them neurotically shout about how there are no differences between us and lash out at anyone who says anything even remotely different from what they do.
 
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Harold Robbins was one of the bestselling novelists of all time. He got into novel writing later in his life, after working in the accounting department of the movie studios.

His early book A Stone for Danny Fisher, is an amazing coming-of-age story that is his best and a fabulous novel. Not particularly “Jewish” because that isn’t a subject of the story but Robbins was Jewish (Birth name Harold Rubin). Elvis starred in King Creole which was a butchered movie based supposedly on Robbins’ novel, but I have never seen the movie. I read a biography of Harold Robbins and this movie was changed so much that it really wasn’t based on the book at all.

I recommend this book along with the others here.
 

achillea

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Not Jewish but about them

The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Arthur Butz
 

nwo2012

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Elie Wiesel was a fraud (not unlike many other alleged holocaust survivors who published successful narratives post-war) and was exposed by Alexander Cockburn in this article: Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel’s “Night”.

To the OP, among these suggestions one can find the worldview of the jewish plebeian. To learn the worldview of the jewish patrician, that has been in place since 1945, read the Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein.

Not Jewish but about them

The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Arthur Butz

The Weasel was also exposed during the rigged trial of Ernst Zundel.
 

Teres

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Jul 13, 2017
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@Broken man in your first comment after the main thread-post you have answered your questions.

But your notion about the Jewish people is unrealistic, as the one zealous minorities among the Jewish societies have, exceptionalism being the core of it. Of course, as a distinct group of people with their own culture and faith this has it's share of weight, to a degree. In the past the Jewish people have been persecuted and their oportunities in societies restricted. And since then two factors have been snowballing their collective development - collective consolidation and upbringing along education in Judaic literature. It is an intellectual demand that influences the individual's path. When you have been reading and reasoning since the day you have been taught to read, the strive for intellectual pursuits remains. And since the Jewish societies have been consolidated in a certain manner, the result has been an ethno-cultural group with the highest literacy per capita.

Back to contemporary reality. The Jewish people today don't live in separated neighborhoods and ghettos across Europe and the rest of the world anymore. Many of them are..European by roots. The people who consider themselves Jews differ from one another. Vastly. Many of them aren't really religious. Many don't ever share the passion for books the nearest rabbi has. And you have assumed that the Jewish people collectively share a worldview and ways to deal with life. Quite often you can end up reading authors Jewish by origin who have been influenced and shaped by the European thought. If you have interest in Judaism, thus strictly Jewish ways, buying the required literature and a chat with the nearest rabbi is the way. But if you think that you'll find necessarily a peculiar knowledge, outlook and a way to approach life in a literary work solely because it has been written by a person with Jewish roots, you'll be disappointed.
 

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