Virtual Jewish Book Club

The Jewish book club (separate from the Israeli book club )  meets online monthly on the second Tuesday at 1 PM to discuss selected books by Jewish authors.

This month’s book is The Third Daughter by Talia Carner. Care­ful­ly researched and metic­u­lous­ly nov­el­ized, Carn­er tells the sto­ry of Batya, the third of many daugh­ters of a strug­gling Russ­ian milk­man. Batya’s two old­er sis­ters have already gone astray — one mar­ried a rev­o­lu­tion­ary and the oth­er, a gen­tile. Exis­tence is uncer­tain, and pogroms reg­u­lar­ly dec­i­mate entire shtetls. Echoes of ​“Fid­dler on the Roof” are unavoid­able, but the par­al­lels stop when Batya, at four­teen, catch­es the eye of what seems to be a rich, eli­gi­ble man from ​“Amer­i­ca.” Smooth and redo­lent with cologne, he promis­es Batya’s father that he will mar­ry her when she is six­teen — mean­while keep­ing her safe with his sis­ter. The patri­arch imag­ines a gild­ed world in which his daugh­ter will ride in car­riages and dine on fine chi­na. Lit­tle does he know that there are will be no mar­riages or car­riages. Instead, young Batya (and thou­sands like her) will be raped with­in days of kiss­ing her mameh and tateh good­bye, and that her suitor’s ​“sis­ter” runs an Argen­tin­ian whore­house in which Batya will be enslaved.

If you are interested in joining the book club, please email tami@jcc-asheville.org.