Outstanding new books available at the Gitlin library

The only Jewish community library in Africa!

A wonderful Chanukah to all our library borrowers! Contact us on admin@gitlinlibrary.co.za or phone 021 462 5088


CONVICTION by D.A. Mishani. Inspector Avi Avraham begins two investigations on the same day. A new-born baby is found in a bag outside a hospital, and a Swiss tourist disappears from a beach hotel near Tel Aviv. An inquiry reveals that the tourist has been using a fake passport and two names. Could he be a Mossad agent? Both investigations spiral into a maze of deception threatening to put Avraham in conflict with the most powerful men in the country — who technically do not exist. 


THE ESCAPE ARTIST by Jonathan Freedland. Journalist Freedland delivers the powerful and true story of Rudolf Vrba, the first Jew to escape Auschwitz. In 1944, resolved to reveal the truth about the camp and to warn the last Jews of Europe of their fate, he completed a gruelling walk to Slovakia, smuggling the first full account of the camp. This detailed report reached Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope. Vrba helped save 20,000 Jewish lives. 


ANNA & DR HELMY by Ronen Steinke. The remarkable story of an Egyptian doctor who saved many Jews living in Berlin from the Nazis. Dr Helmy met Anna, the daughter of one of his Jewish patients, in 1936. When asked three years later to hide her, he took her into his medical practice as his assistant, taught her some Muslim prayers and Arabic while claiming she was his niece. Mohammed Helmy is the only Arab honoured as ‘Righteous among the Nations’.


ASHTON HALL by Lauren Belfer. Manhattan art historian Hannah Larson travels to Ashton Hall in England when her honorary uncle falls ill. Soon after her arrival, her son Nicky finds the skeletal remains of a woman Isabella Cresham walled into part of the manor. Working from clues in centuries-old ledgers, Hannah recreates the Ashton Hall of the Elizabethan era. As the secrets of Hannah’s own life unravel, she finds the experiences of Ashton Hall’s women are not different from her own.


THE HUNT by Faye Kellerman. This Kellerman finale has alternating storylines: Inspector Decker’s effort to close his last homicide case; and the terrible circumstances surrounding the parents of his and Rina’s foster son Gabe. Teresa, Gabe’s mother, has been attacked and her younger son kidnapped by her estranged ex-husband. She enlists the help of her first husband, a high-end criminal. Simultaneously, Decker tries to solve the case of a body found in the woods. A cleverly paced mystery.


I KEPT WALKING by Minou Soumekh Mischlin. A poignant account of Minou, growing up in Iran with a disease that branded her as ‘less than’. She had to flee Iran and confront the psychological toll of her polio. Unwilling to be crushed by the conservative society into which she was born, Minou had the courage to enter therapy and succeed in America. From Tehran to a Jerusalem hospital room, she worked on her inner self, embraced her culture and defied its taboos to keep on walking.


ZABARS by Lori Zabar. In 1934, when Louis and Lilly Zabar rented a counter in a dairy store in Manhattan to sell smoked fish, they could not have imagined that it would eventually occupy half a block and become a beloved mecca for quality food of all kinds. A passion for excellence led four generations of Zabars to continue with a deli that would allow immigrants, New Yorkers and celebrities from Nora Ephron to Marlon Brando to rub shoulders. 


THE POPE AT WAR by David I. Kertzer. When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives until 2020. David Kertzer, a leading Vatican scholar, reveals how the pope set aside moral leadership to preserve his church’s power. A portrait of the Pope’s silence as war was looming and the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews. The book shows how from 1939 1945, Pope Pius XII bent to the wills of Hitler and Mussolini.

Jacob Gitlin Library www.gitlinlibrary.co.za
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• Published in the December 2022/January 2023 Digital Edition – Click here to read it.

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