Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness. In this altered reality,...

"In the midst of boomtown Chicago, two Jewish families have suffered terrible blows. The Lehrmans, who run a small hat factory, lost their beloved son Harold in a blizzard. The Chimbrovas, who run a saloon, lost three of their boys on the SS Eastland when it sank in 1915. Each family holds out hope that one of their remaining children will rise to carry on the family business. But Benny Lehrman has no interest in making hats. His true passion is piano--especially...

"As the 1980s draw to a close, South Africa is a maelstrom of political violence with the apartheid regime in its death throes. Young Martin Helger is the struggling odd duck at an elite private boys school in Johannesburg, with his father a rough-handed scrap dealer and his brother a mysterious legend. When a beautiful and manipulative American arrives at the family home, Martin soon finds himself wrenched out of his isolated bubble and thrust into...

A septuagenarian business owner evaluates her grandchildren as possible successors to her multi-million-dollar beauty empire, including New York movie studio editor Daisy, womanizing sports PR representative Matt, and religious Legal Aid lawyer Raquel.

From their homes in New York and New Zealand, cousins Noah and Nora have a competition to decide who can have the world's best Hanukkah, winter or summer, but as the eight nights of Hanukkah go on, they realize they have more in common than they thought.

Reagan was in the White House, the malls were filled with New Wave fashionistas, and the Goldbergs were living large in the '80s. Documenting his hilariously combative, yet loving family with a video camera nearly as big as he is, eleven-year-old geek Adam is witness to all kinds of insanity from his over-protective, over-the-top mom, quick-tempered dad, rebellious sister, high-strung brother, and super suave grandfather. Eleven-year-old Adam faces...

For all his wealth and success, Asher Malacouti--the head of a prosperous Jewish family living in the Iranian town of Kermanshah in the early twentieth century--cannot have the one thing he desires above all: a son. His young wife Rakhel, trapped in an oppressive marriage at a time when a woman's worth is measured by her fertility, is made desperate by her failure to conceive, and grows jealous and vindictive.

"New York City tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts knows almost nothing about the mother who abandoned her as an infant. Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a college boy from Florida - and then disappeared. When Rebekah hears about a young Hasidic mother found dead in her bathtub in upstate New York, she thinks there might be a story in it. And as she looks closer, she discovers that the...