The Genizah at the House of Shepher

by Tamar Yellin

In the attic of the Shepher house at Kiriat Shoshan in Jerusalem, aging paper turns to dust. The trash and treasures of three generations of the family tumble into chaos.

In this geniza, an accidental find is made. It is a book, a codex, a bound manuscript of the Torah that doesn’t precisely match the accepted version of the Torah today.

Is this a national treasure? Will it change the fate and fortunes of the Shepher family? Does it even belong to them?

If All the Seas Were Ink

by Ilana Kurshan

This is a collection of eloquent essays about Ilana Kurshan’s seven-and-a-half year journey through the Talmud as a daily participant in Daf Yomi.

As she read Talmud, she kept a journal that evolved into this poignant, funny, spiritual and enlightening commentary on how her modern life resonated – and clashed -- with the writings of rabbinic sages from the beginning of the Common Era.

When she began, she was 27, recently divorced from her rabbinical student husband of less than nine months and living in Jerusalem. She left behind in New York her father, a Conservative rabbi; her mother, an executive with the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York; her siblings; her friends and her colleagues in publishing.

Bethlehem Road Murder

by Batya Gur

When the body of the beautiful and talented Zahara Bashari is found brutally murdered in the attic of an old house in Jerusalem, every secret, every squabble, every tension between neighbors and their diverse communities is exposed by the ensuing investigation.

In the background, relations between the Palestinians and the Jews are simmering into an escalation of the Intifada.

Leading the investigation is Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon, a handsome, brooding, thoughtful man with an unfinished doctorate in history at Cambridge University.