By Anne Alper for Temple Israel

Temple Israel’s popular Books and Bagels program will resume this fall with three interesting online presentations. Sessions will take place on Sunday mornings at 10 am. No registration or RSVP is necessary – just join via the Zoom link at https://templeisraelottawa.zoom.us/j/99903947671 or by telephone at 1-647-558-0588.

On September 13, Gerald Halpern, a member of Temple Israel and a frequent reviewer for the Malca Pass Book Group, will review Strangers with the Same Dream by Alison Pick. This novel examines the competing ideals underling the Zionist movement, by exploring the conflicting feelings and ambitions of Jewish pioneers who fled the violence and antisemitism of Eastern Europe to forge a new way of life with the establishment of kibbutzim.

On October 25, Angus Smith, a reviewer and writer for several publications now residing in rural Nova Scotia, will review The King of the Jews by Leslie Epstein. He will revisit Epstein’s 1979 imagining of life and death in the Lodz Ghetto, to see what it has to tell us about individual and institutional compromise in the contemporary world.

On November 29, Rabbi Daniel Mikelberg of Temple Israel will review I Am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits. “Sweeping from the Central European countryside just before World War II to Paris to contemporary Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I Am Forbidden brings to life four generations of one Satmar family,” notes Good Reads.

For more information, contact Lily Cox at lilycox@bell.net.