Best 100 Contemporary Jewish Books

Why only a hundred? There could easily be a thousand!

I asked dozens of Jewish writers, thinkers, rabbis, academics, and community leaders to make recommendations and a smaller group of them to help me narrow down the list. By the end of the process I still had two hundred books that deserved to be noted and room to list only half of them.

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I decided to limit my list to books that are available in English and have been written since 1985. That helped winnow the list somewhat, but it pained me to not be able to cite some books that have had tremendous influence in the current period but were published before 1985. I am thinking particularly of the work of my teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel, Emmanuel Levinas, and Martin Buber; the poetry of Don Pagis and Denise Levertov; the best fiction of Cynthia Ozick, Tillie Olsen, Chaim Grade, Chaim Potok, and Bernard Malamud; the writing of Irving Howe; the early and probably more significant works of Elie Wiesel; and the influential works that appeared in the "Jewish Catalogue"(s) or in the writing of the most important Jewish feminists, collected by Susannah Heschel in 1983.

In saying "best" books, I actually mean "most significant" books. By significant, I mean books that have a profound message or are written in ways that are overwhelmingly beautiful and compelling or have had a profound impact on public Jewish discourse or have influenced the most creative people in their take on reality or are likely to have that impact.

Some people suggested that I list my own Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (HarperCollins, 1995) or my dialogue with Cornel West, Blacks and Jews: Let the Healing Begin (Putnam, 1995). I appreciated their enthusiasm, but I demurred. In fact, if anything I've sinned against anyone close to me by bending over backward to avoid playing favorites. I've listened to others, and included books that I don't like (and some that I really can't stand) but have played an important role in contemporary Jewish discourse.

What's the point of this kind of list? Well, its primary value is as a way to cut through hundreds of hours of research and focus on the books that are central to contemporary Jewish literacy. I can safely say that if you read the books listed here, you'll be amply prepared to participate in contemporary discussions in the Jewish world. But I do apologize to the many, many authors whose works are equally deserving to be on this list.

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