People of the Book

Meryl chats with Zibby Owens about her new memoir, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature , in which she shares her personal journey of loss, anxiety, food issues, finding love, reverence for literature -- and ultimately reinvention and fulfillment. They also discuss Zibby’s many other ventures, including Zibby Mag, Zibby Books , and her podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books! Zibby...

On today’s episode of People of the Book, Meryl chats with Isabel Vincent about her new book, Overture of Hope: Two Sisters’ Daring Plan That Saved Opera’s Jewish Stars from the Third Reich. The book chronicles the amazing story of two English sisters – both opera buffs and spinsters -- who mastermind a daring plan to rescue Jewish opera stars in Germany and Austria from the Nazis and get them to...

Meryl and her husband Stewart Ain, a veteran journalist and recent kidney recipient, chat with Martha Gershun about her book, Kidney to Share (2021), which she co-authored with John Lantos, MD. The book chronicles Martha’s experience as an altruistic kidney donor and provides a medical perspective about kidney transplants. In 2018 Martha Gershun donated a kidney at the Mayo Clinic to a woman she r...

Meryl chats with Elan Barnehama about his new novel, Escape Route, which takes place in the late 1960s during the War in Vietnam. It is a coming-of-age story seen through the eyes of the teenage son of Holocaust survivors. Escape Route (published in May 2022) is Elan Barnehama’s second novel. It’s set in New York City during the tumultuous late 1960s and told by Zach, the first-generation son of H...

Meryl chats with Susan Weidman Schneider, editor-in-chief of Lilith Magazine, about the anthology she co-edited, Frankly Feminist, which features 44 short stories that have been published in Lilith over the past 45 years. They also discuss the history and mission of Lilith Magazine and Susan’s role as editor-in-chief, since its launch in 1976. One of Lilith’s founding mothers, Susan has been edito...

Meryl chats with Jacquie Herz about her 2021 novel, Circumference of Silence, which draws on her family’s memories as Jews in Europe under Hitler and their refugee experiences, first in London during the second world war and, later, in New York. Jacquie was born in London, shortly after the end of World War II, to a family of Jewish refugees who fled Hitler’s Europe. When she was eight, her parent...

Meryl chats with Rose Ross and Ruth Rotkowitz about their post-Holocaust novels, which were influenced by their first-hand experiences as children of survivors. They talk about the influences on their lives and the responsibility they share to keep alive the story of the Holocaust and its impact. Ruth Rotkowitz is the author of two novels, Escaping the Whale and the prequel, The Whale Surfaces. Sh...

Meryl chats with Roni Robbins about her 2022 novel, Hands of Gold, which is loosely based on her paternal grandfather’s cassette tapes. Using literary license, she writes about how he survived TB, a workplace shooting and an accidental killing, and walked thousands of miles across several countries to flee anti-Semitism in pre-Nazi Europe. Roni has worked for 35 years as a published writer. Curren...

Meryl chats with Brad Kolodny about his new book, The Jews of Long Island 1705-1918, which chronicles the roots of the Jewish experience on Long Island, why Jews decided to move to Nassau and Suffolk counties, and how they established their communities there. He also discusses plans to establish a Jewish museum on the island under the auspices of the Jewish Historical Society of L.I. Brad Kolodny...

Meryl chats with Jacqueline Friedland about her new novel, He Gets That From Me ( September 2021 ), which tells the story of a young woman who serves as a surrogate mother and subsequently discovers that she has unwittingly given away her own biological child. They also talk about Jacqueline’s two other a ward-winning novels, Trouble the Water and That’s Not a Thing, and how she tackles diverse ge...

Meryl chats with Marilyn Simon Rothstein about how she combines her Jewish background and her robust sense of humor in her recently released novel, Crazy To Leave You (May 2022), as well as her other award-winning novels, Husbands and Other Sharp Objects, and Lift and Separate. Crazy To Leave You is the Number #1 New Release in Jewish Fiction on Amazon and tells the story of a 41-year-old woman wh...

Meryl chats with Lois Schaffer about her new book, From Bullet to Bullhorn and her 2013 book, The Unthinkable : Life, Loss and a Mother’s Mission to Ban Illegal Guns , which was written after her daughter Susan was murdered by a robber with a gun. They discuss how Lois channeled her grief into writing these books, as well as her thoughts about the current scourge of gun violence. Lois Schaffer is...

Meryl chats with Rabbi Dan Ornstein about his book, Cain v. Abel : A Jewish Courtroom Drama , and the timeless issues it raises about the world’s first murder. These include: sibling rivalry, dysfunctional families, the human family, misogyny, forgiveness – and the perennial question, Am I My Brother’s Keeper? Rabbi Ornstein is the rabbi of Congregation Ohav Shalom and a writer living with his fam...

Meryl chats with Sharon Gloger Friedman about historical fiction, her recently released novel, In Freedom’s Light, and her 2019 award-winning book, Ashes. Her second novel is set against the background of eighteenth and nineteenth century Charleston and Philadelphia. Her award-winning first novel chronicles one family’s escape from the horrors of a Russian pogrom to the tenements of New York City,...

Meryl chats with Esther Amini about her 2020 memoir, Concealed, which chronicles her childhood and coming of age in a Persian-Jewish household in Queens, New York during the 1960s. As the American-born daughter of parents who had fled Mashdad, Iran, she shares how she was caught between these two cultures as she sought to carve her own path. Esther Amini is a writer, painter, and psychoanalytic ps...

Meryl chats with Dan about his new book, By the Grace of the Game, which chronicles his family’s journey from the Holocaust to the NBA, the essential role of basketball in his family, and his own commitment to share the lessons of the Holocaust. Dan Grunfeld is a former professional basketball player, an accomplished writer, and a proud graduate of Stanford University. An Academic All-American and...

Meryl chats with Rabbi Sandy Sasso about her mission of engaging the religious imagination of children through her books, and her career as one of the first women to become a rabbi in America. Rabbi Sasso was the first woman ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1974 and the first to serve a Conservative congregation together with her husband, Rabbi Dennis C. Sasso. They were t...

Meryl chats with Thane about Holocaust literature, Holocaust writers, his own post-Holocaust fiction, and his new non-fiction book, Saving Free Speech…from Itself. Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro College, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He has written numerous works of fiction and nonfiction and hundr...

Meryl chats with Julie Zuckerman about her novel-in-stories, The Book of Jeremiah, and what it’s like to be an English-speaking writer in Israel, where she founded the monthly author series Literary Modiin . More about Julie Zuckerman Julie Zuckerman‘s debut novel-in-stories, The Book of Jeremiah , was published in May 2019 and has been selected by dozens of synagogue, sisterhood, Hadassah and pri...

Meryl chats with Michelle Cameron about her novel, Beyond The Ghetto Gates, which tells the little known story of how Napoleon liberated the Jewish Ghetto in Ancona, Italy. Michelle Cameron is the award-winning author of works of historical fiction and poetry: including Beyond the Ghetto Gates (2020), The Fruit of Her Hands: The Story of Shira of Ashkenaz (2009), and In the Shadow of the Globe (20...