Review led by Cynthia Good Watching her Russian immigrant mother, Irina, struggle to put food on the table, Nina, a beautiful and restless teenager, vows her life will be different. When a strapping older man in a fancy car appears at school one day offering her luxuries her single mother cannot afford, Nina believes he’s her ticket out of her dumpy little town. Ignoring the danger signs and her mother’s constant pleas—which end in exhausting screaming matches—she packs a suitcase and leaves home after one last fight. Ten days later, a terrified Nina, her dress torn, is hiding in the stairwell of a Tel Aviv apartment after witnessing a murder she cannot talk about. Set between the eve of Passover and Israel’s Independence Day, On Her Own is a tense and immersive psychological read about two families looking for redemption, the transformative bonds between strangers, and the unexpected places from which love can grow.

Elaine Newton reviews The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. The review will begin at 1:30 p.m. and is preceded by lunch at 12:45 p.m. This program will also be available to join over Zoom. It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Review led by Janna Nadler Janna Nadler reviews Fervor by Toby Lloyd. The review will begin at 1:30 p.m. and is preceded by lunch at 12:45 p.m. This program will also be available to join over Zoom. 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 a sensationalist 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, a brilliant but reclusive student struggling to find his place at Oxford, the truth is much simpler: his sister is the product of a dysfunctional family, obsessed with empty 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? Alive with both the bristling energy of a great campus novel and the unsettling, ever-shifting ground of a great horror tale, Fervor is at its heart a family story—where personal allegiances compete with obligations to history and to mysterious forces that offer both consolation and devastation

Review led by Dr. Gillian Helfield Gillian Helfield reviews A Real Pain (2024). The review will begin at 1:30 p.m. and is preceded by lunch at 12:45 p.m. This program will also be available to join over Zoom. Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.  Available for viewing on Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV and Youtube.

Cynthia Good reviews My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor. The review will begin at 1:30 p.m. and is preceded by lunch at 12:45 p.m. This program will also be available to join over Zoom. September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. Gestapo boss Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. Hunger is widespread. Rumors fester. The war’s outcome is far from certain. Diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City, at one fifth of a square mile the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome. A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is drawn into deadly danger as they seek to help those seeking refuge. Book 1 in the Rome Escape Line Trilogy, My Father’s House is a powerful, heartbreaking literary thriller based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who risked his life to smuggle thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy under the nose of his Nazi nemesis. A deadly high-stakes battle of wits ensues in this astonishing, unforgettable story of love, faith and sacrifice, exploring what it means to be truly human in the most extreme circumstances.

Dawn Promislow and Nora Gold join in conversation about Nora's novellas In Sickness and in Health & Yom Kippur in a Gym. The review will begin at 1:30 p.m. and is preceded by lunch at 12:45 p.m. This program will also be available to join over Zoom. In Sickness and In Health - Lily had epilepsy as a child, so her most cherished goal has always been to be "normal". By age 45 she has a "normal" life, including a family, friends, and an artistic career, and no one, not even her husband, knows the truth about her past. But now some cartoons she drew threaten to reveal her childhood secret and destroy her marriage and everything she has worked so hard for. A moving novella about shame, secrets, disabilities, and the limits and power of love. Yom Kippur in a Gym - Five strangers at a Yom Kippur service in a gym are struggling with personal crises. Lucy can't accept her husband's Parkinson's diagnosis. Ira, rejected by his lover, plans to commit suicide. Ezra is tormented by a mistake that ruined his career. Rachel worries about losing her job. Tom contemplates severing contact with his sisters. Then a medical emergency unexpectedly throws these five strangers together, and in one hour all their lives are changed in ways they would never have believed possible.

Join us at Beth Tzedec as Dr. Gillian Helfield reviews Amikam Kovner and Assaf Snir's film "Echo". Avner suspects his wife Ella (Yaël Abecassis, LIVE AND BECOME) of having an affair. Secretly recording her telephone conversations, he turns into a spy in his own home, listening to them again and again. But while searching for one thing, he discovers another - the woman he listens to is a stranger to him, so very different from the one he thought he knew. He tries to understand that woman, to decode their relationship, but the more he knows, the less he understands.

Judith Friedland joins to discuss her recently released memoir There Was A Time For Everything. The review will begin at 1:30 p.m. and is preceded by snacks. Dawn Promislow, author of Wan, will join her for a conversation about the book. After the death of her mother when she turned ten, Judith Friedland learned to be resilient. She met the expectations for upper-middle-class women in Toronto in the 1940s and 1950s, which included post-secondary education, marriage, and motherhood. While raising a family and supporting her husband’s academic career, she continued her formal education through part-time study and gradually began a journey tailored to herself as an individual. In her forties, she embarked on her own academic career, rising through the ranks to become a tenured full professor and chair of the department of occupational therapy in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. In There Was a Time for Everything, Friedland reflects on her life and the fact that over time she managed to "have it all" – just not all at once. For Spring 2024 series — 3 sessions: $30 Beth Tzedec member / $40 Community member Individual sessions: $15 per session Judith Friedland grew up in Toronto where she attended John R Wilcox, Vaughan Road Collegiate – and McCaul Street Synagogue. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a Diploma in Physical and Occupational Therapy in 1960 and returned to U of T over the years, completing a BA in 1976, an MA in 1981, and a PhD in 1988. She married in 1958—here in Beth Tzedec—and has three children, and eight grandchildren. She worked as an occupational therapist in psychiatric hospitals in Cambridge, England and Toronto before her children were born and returned to work, part-time, at COTA (Community Occupational Therapy and Associates), once they were all in school. At age 43, she began her academic career in occupational therapy, in the Faculty of Medicine, at U of T, rising through the ranks to Full Professor and chairing her department. Her main research areas have been in the psychosocial aspects of Illness, Injury and Aging and the early history of occupational therapy in Canada. Dawn Promislow was born and raised in South Africa and has lived in Toronto since 1987. She is the author of the novel Wan, which was a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association's Fred Kerner Book Award 2023, a Miramichi Best Fiction title of 2022, a CanLit Bookclub Pick in Zoomer magazine, and a finalist in the design category for an Alberta Book Publishing Award 2023. The novel was on several of CBC Books's recommended lists of historical fiction for 2022. Dawn is also the author of the short story collection Jewels and Other Stories, which was named one of the eight best fiction debuts of 2011 by the Globe and Mail, and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2011. She's had numerous award-nominated short stories, poems, and essays published in literary journals in Canada, the US, and the UK, and anthologized in books. She is working on a new novel.