Have You Seen Luis Velez?
Saturday, August 9, 12:45 – 2:00 p.m.
“Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez? Mildred Gutermann, a German Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust, has been alone since her caretaker disappeared. She turns to Raymond for help, and as he tries to track Luis down, a deep and unexpected friendship blossoms between the two. Despondent at the loss of Luis, Mildred isolates herself further from a neighborhood devolving into bigotry and fear. Determined not to let her give up, Raymond helps her see that for every terrible act the world delivers, there is a mirror image of deep kindness, and Mildred helps Raymond see that there’s hope if you have someone to hold on to.”–Back cover. By Catherine Hyde, led by Betty Becker
Ain’t No Grave? by Mary Glickman
Saturday, September 13, 12:45 – 2:00 p.m.
Best friends from childhood in rural Georgia, Ruby and Max care deeply for one another. The inescapable cultural realities separating a Black daughter of sharecroppers and white Jewish son of store owners, however, become insurmountable in adolescence. Ruby runs away to Atlanta without leaving word with her family or Max. Circumstances eventually place her in Leo Frank’s match factory. Years later, Max winds up as a stringer to Atlanta’s top newspaper covering the real life trial in which Frank, a Jew, is accused of raping and murdering his employee Mary Phagan, a white Southern girl. Racism and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin, devaluing and destroying everything but Ruby’s and Max’s enduring love. The discussion will be led by Rachel Abramovitz.
The Loves of Judith by Meir Shalev
Saturday, October 11, 12:45 – 2:00 p.m.
Also published as Four Meals, this rich and remarkable novel recounts how, over the course of four meals that take place across several decades, a boy named Zayde learns about his mother Judith’s relationships in a rural village in British Mandate Palestin in the 1930s with her three lovers, all of whom consider him their son. The discussion will be led by Deborah Estreicher. Approximately four weeks ahead, we will have 12 copies of this book from the Jewish Community Library to lend out. Please contact Miriam Marr to reserve your copy: adulted@beth-david.org. Please return your copy by October 11.
The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom
Saturday, November 8, 12:45 – 2:00 p.m.
Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves and pull him in. The man, strange and quiet, claims to be the Lord. Is the man who he claims to be? What actually caused the explosion? Are survivors already in heaven, or are they in hell? Years later when an empty life raft washes up on the island of Montserrat – the events recounted in a notebook – it falls to the island’s chief inspector to solve the mystery of what really happened. The discussion will be led by Lori Cinnamon.