The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2001-11-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429957816

When Catherine da Costa, a wealthy Manhattan matron, learns she has only a short time to live, she realizes that her family tree will die unless she passes on its legacy and traditions to her granddaughters. But Suzanne and Francesca, beautiful young women caught up in trendy causes and ambitious careers, have no interest in the past. Catherine almost despairs until one night she is visited by the ghost of her family's anscestor, an indomitable Renaissance businesswoman named Hannah Mandes. The ghost of Hannah Mendes encourages Catherine to use every trick in the book to coerce the granddaughters to journey across Europe and acquaint themselves with their roots. While the sisters honor their grandmother's request out of loyalty, they believe their quest is futile--until it starts to uncover ancient pages from Hannah Mendes's fascinating memoir, and brings new loves into their lives.

The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2001-11-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0312281250

The ghost of a real-life historical figure helps elderly Catherine da Costa convince her granddaughters to travel across Europe with her and helps them find a link between past and present by leaving mysterious journal entries along their travel route.

The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: Everbind
Total Pages:
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre:
ISBN: 9780784818060

A novel for secondary school English classes with great writing and important themes.

The Covenant

The Covenant
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2007-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429908009

Living in Jerusalem, Elise Margulies fears for the lives of her husband and daughter every day. Then comes the day when her worst fears come true. Cancer specialist Dr. Jonathan Margulies drives his young daughter home from her ballet recital. His bullet-ridden car is found empty on the side of the road hours later. Elise, in the last stages of a difficult pregnancy, desperately calls her grandmother Leah in America for help and unknowingly revives a decades-old oath. Over five terror and hope-filled days during which ordinary people join the front lines against terrorism, the ties that bind two generations form a powerful alliance against contemporary evil.

Sotah

Sotah
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2009-09-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429919663

Beautiful, fragile Dina Reich, a young woman in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox haredi enclave, stands accused of the community's most unforgivable sin: adultery. Raised with her sisters to be an obedient daughter and a dutiful wife, Dina secretly yearned for the knowledge, romance, and excitement that she knew her circumscribed life would never satisfy. When her first romance is tragically thwarted, she willingly enters into an arranged marriage with a loving but painfully quiet man. Dina's deeply repressed passions become impossible to ignore, finding a dangerous outlet in a sudden and intense obsession with a married man, with terrible consequences. Exiled to New York City, Dina meets Joan, a modern secular woman who challenges all she knows of the world and herself. Set against the exotic backdrop of Jerusalem's glistening white stones and ancient rituals, Sotah is a contemporary story of the struggle to reconcile tradition with freedom, and faith with love.

Jephte's Daughter

Jephte's Daughter
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2010-02-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429957239

The pampered daughter of a wealthy Hasidic businessman, Batsheva Ha-Levi grows up in the affluent suburbs of Los Angeles. But everything changes when she turns eighteen and finds that her loving father has made a secret vow which will shatter her life, forcing her to marry a man she hardly knows and sending her to the exotic, golden city of Jerusalem. On her wedding day, she enters a strange and foreign world steeped in tradition and surrounded by myth. Shackled by ancient rules, she soon understands that to survive she will have no choice but to fight for her freedom, to reconcile her own need to live in the modern world with her ancestral obligations, and to choose between the three men who vie for her body, her soul, and her love. Now a classic listed among the one hundred most important Jewish books of all time*, Jephte's Daughter is bestselling author Naomi Ragen's beloved first novel. With poignancy and insight, it takes readers on a groundbreaking and unforgettable journey inside the hidden world of women in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. *100 Essential Books For Jewish Readers, Rabbi Daniel B. Sync and Lindy Frenkel Kanter

Chains Around the Grass

Chains Around the Grass
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: Toby Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003-09
Genre: Absentee fathers
ISBN: 9781902881829

Set in the 1950's in New York City, this is a portrait of a Jewish-American family that glows with affection, tenderness, and courage when tragedy changes the lives of all who are left behind.

The Sacrifice of Tamar

The Sacrifice of Tamar
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2010-07-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429910844

Tamar Finegold is twenty-one years old, the happy, beautiful bride of a rising young Rabbi in one of Brooklyn's insulated, ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Having married the man of her dreams and taken her place as a wife—and hopefully soon-to-be mother—in her community, Tamar feels as though the world is at her feet. But her secure, predictable existence is brought to an abrupt end when she is raped by an intruder. Fearing the unbearable stigma and threat to her marriage that could result from telling the truth, Tamar makes a fateful decision that changes her life forever. Her feeling that she did the only thing she could under the circumstances explodes when years later a shocking, undreamed of turn of events finally forces her to confront her past, once and for all

Seven Blessings

Seven Blessings
Author: Ruchama King
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2004-11-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466835281

The closed, secret world of matchmaking in contemporary Israel provides the titillating pivot for a story of uncommon proportions. In Ruchama King's skillful hands, Seven Blessings maps out the complicated lives of five expatriate women and men whose search for a soul mate, in many ways, mirrors their search for God. At the center of this fascinating novel is Beth, who at age thirty-nine longs to be married but despairs she ever will be. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, he has what she believes to be an insurmountable flaw. Can she overcome her repugnance in order to forge a new life? Binyamin, a talented painter and student, lacks the humility to identify a worthy wife. He strains the matchmakers' patience until his search for perfect love finally becomes ridiculous, even to himself. Tsippi and Judith, the matchmakers, are stumbling themselves, with marriages that need propping up. In this land of miracles, seeking the right match, whether between singles, husband and wife, student and teacher, or man and God, becomes a quest that opens the Bible to us in a new way. Rich characters, an intriguing setting, writing that offers unique nuances, and ultimately a story that keeps you turning the pages all combine to introduce a remarkable newcomer. Seven Blessings redefines the Jewish experience, with a story that will ring with truth for anyone who's ever considered getting married.