Adult Education Blog

This month's meeting is pushed back a week due to scheduling conflicts! We will meet the first Wednesday of September at 10:30 on Zoom to discuss The Genizah of the House of Shepher.

Tamar Yellin is an artic­u­late, intel­li­gent, and pas­sion­ate defend­er of the val­ue and the majesty of the tra­di­tions of Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture; and it is not sur­pris­ing as a result that she has pro­duced a nov­el which serves both as a pas­sion­ate defense of that tra­di­tion and is a note­wor­thy con­tri­bu­tion to it. In The Genizah of the House of Shep­her, which is loose­ly based on episodes from the writer’s life, a con­tem­po­rary schol­ar gets wrapped up in her family’s his­to­ry with the man­u­script known as the Shep­her Codex. The adven­tures that ensue explore Jew­ish time and Jew­ish space. The streets of Jerusalem from a cen­tu­ry ago open up to the read­er as if one is watch­ing an old news­reel; and char­ac­ters from the book argue, think, talk, and read the liv­ing and lived debates of Jew­ish his­to­ry. If the nov­el itself has its own secret man­u­script hid­den with­in it, that man­u­script is noth­ing less than much of mod­ern Jew­ish life writ small; to pack all that in is a remark­able achieve­ment for any work. In short, this is a book for peo­ple who are deeply in love with books, with lit­er­a­ture, and with Judaism.