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Memorials

BOOK CLUB

The TBS Book Club will be meeting on Sunday, March. 24 2024, 11:00 am at the Taub's home 10 Gatewood Dr., Hauppauge, NY 11788
Phone: 631-543-6589

 

Book: Hope Valley
Hope Valley is the story of two women, one Jewish-Israeli and one Palestinian-Israeli, who come together to form the unlikeliest of friendships. Tikvah and Ruby meet one summer day right before the outbreak of the 2nd intifada, in the Galilean valley that separates the segregated villages in which the two women live. The valley Ruby’s father had called Hope came to symbolize the political enmity that has defined the history of two nations in this troubled land and which has led to parallel cultures with little meaningful interaction between them.

Tikvah, a fifty-two-year old artist from Long Island, is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and was raised in a loveless and lifeless household. Ruby, a world-renowned Palestinian-Israeli artist, returns to her childhood village from a life abroad to be treated for her worsening cancer. At first, Ruby pursues Tikvah’s friendship to get into Tikvah’s house and retrieve the diary Ruby’s father had left behind when his family was expelled from that same house in the 1948 war. But as their friendship grows, they not only open up to each other’s narratives and humanity, but uncover secrets from their own lives.

Tikvah’s and Ruby’s stories show both the strength and fragility of family ties, the power that trauma and fear has in shaping our lives, the strength we muster to face death and suffering, the vicissitudes of marriage and the glorious meaning of friendship. Their lives tap into the primal need for connection, as well as the rich and transformative bonds that can be formed from synchronistic encounters. In Hope Valley we meet two strong women from nations in conflict, who circle each other and, in recognizing each other's pain, offer us hope that fear and resentment can grow into love.

 
Author
 
 
Haviva Ner-David
 
Haviva Ner-David’s 2006 ordination made her one of the first Orthodox women to claim the title of “Rabbi,” part of her lifelong work o enable Jewish women—and Jews in general—to reexamine and reengage with the tradition. Born Haviva Krasner-Davidson, Ner-David was raised Orthodox, but the lower expectations for girls’ participation caused her to check out of synagogue life. As she became more involved in Jewish study as an adult, she applied to Yeshiva University’s rabbinical program in 1993 but never received a response from the university. She went on to document her struggles to become an Orthodox woman rabbi in Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in 2000. In 2006 she earned a PhD in Talmud from Bar Ilan University and was granted private ordination by Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky, finally achieving her dream of becoming a rabbi. She then became director of Mikveh Shmaya, the Masorti mikveh at the Hannaton Educational Center in the Galilee, where she incorporated feminist innovations and reinterpretations of the role of the ritual bath in Jewish life. In 2014 she published Chana’s Voice: A Rabbi Struggles with Gender, Commitment, and the Women’s Rituals of Baking, Bathing, and Brightening.
Thu, March 28 2024 18 Adar II 5784