Beth Kissileff: Kissileff's fiction and nonfiction on Israeli, cultural, literary, and religious topics appear regularly in many publications including the New York Times, the Forward, and the Jerusalem Post. A PhD in comparative literature (Univ. of Pennsylvania) she received fellowships from Yaddo, NEH, and Lilly.
The year in Jerusalem you never had! I opened this book intrigued
by its skeptical question: why do people become religious? But as
Kissileff guided me on my year abroad, I discovered, along with her
complicated characters, that the only stupid question is one that
has an answer. A sensitive, nuanced, and believable journey to a
place, both physical and spiritual, that feels utterly real.--Dara
Horn, author of A Guide for the Perplexed, A Novel, The World to
Come, All Other Nights, and In the Image, A Novel The brainy,
conflicted heroine of Beth Kissileff's heart-stirring debut novel
Questioning Return goes to Israel to interview baalei teshuvah,
Jews who have come home to a tradition once lost to them. The
process launches her on an intellectual, spiritual, and romantic
adventure that will change your understanding of what it means to
truly belong. An eloquent and absorbing achievement.--Steve Stern,
author of The Pinch, A Novel, Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven, The
Wedding Jester, The Book of Mischief and The Frozen Rabbi Can
people change? It seems they do, but how and why? In Beth
Kissileff's lovely, widely-learned, and brooding debut novel,
Questioning Return, Princeton graduate student Wendy Goldberg sets
off to Jerusalem to propose these questions to others.
Unexpectedly, the young scholar finds herself the one questioned
while returning to things at once ancient and always new: the
porous boundaries between love and passion, the possibilities of
transformative faith, and the mysterious nature of holiness in a
place that itself seems a living thing to those who have eyes for
it.--Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of The Far Euphrates and The
Illuminated Soul
--
Questioning Return is a fiercely intelligent and, yes, wise novel.
The story of a young woman's attempt to understand the meaning of
'return' becomes a tale of complex, memorable, and transformative
beginnings. This is a novel as rich in the questions it probes as
it is in the characters it renders. Beth Kissileff is a fearless,
wonderful new writer--a gifted storyteller whose novel is as strong
as it is tender. --Jay Neugeboren, author of Max Baer And The Star
of David, Imagining Robert, Stolen Rabbi, and You Are My Heart and
Other Stories "Questioning Return brilliantly portrays the
intellectual and religious life of Jerusalem, as an aspiring young
scholar grapples with the tension between academic study and
traditional Jewish learning. No other novel so vividly portrays the
religious life of young Americans seeking a life of traditional
Jewish observance and Torah study in contemporary Jerusalem.
Sabbaths, holidays, and daily rituals spring to life through a
coming-of-age story of a young woman's struggle to combine her
academic aspirations with a quest for spiritual
fulfillment."--Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Skirball Professor of Talmud
and Rabbinics, New York University, author of Stories of the
Babylonian Talmud and Rabbinic Stories.
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