When We’re Born We Forget Everything
By Alicia Jo Rabins (Schocken)

In her new memoir, Alicia Jo Rabins traces her lifelong yet unconventional spiritual journey, from studying rabbinical texts in Jerusalem to touring with a klezmer-punk band. As she navigates life, motherhood and her evolving connection to Judaism, she weaves together her own experiences with the stories of biblical Jewish women. The result is a deeply personal exploration of faith, identity and discovering meaning in everyday life. 

Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation
By Michael Lowenthal (Mad Creek Books)

Place Envy, Michael Lowenthal’s first collection of essays, follows his search for a place to call home as a gay Jewish man shaped by his family’s history of surviving the Holocaust. His writing details his travels around the world, encounters with unexpected communities and discoveries of his family’s past, all while reflecting on his identity and what it feels like to have a sense of belonging. 

Read our review here: Book Review: ‘Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation’

Peo­ple With­out His­to­ry are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust
ByAnna Hájková, translated by William Ross Jones (University of Toronto Press)

To this day, queerness is one of the most overlooked aspects of Holocaust history. However, Anna Hájková amplifies those voices by telling the stories of German, Dutch, Czech, and Polish Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors. Through extensive archival research, this groundbreaking book dives into the lives of those who were doubly targeted as both Jews and queer individuals, offering a new perspective on survival and identity. 

Mile­na and Mar­garete: A Love Sto­ry in Ravensbrück
By Gwen Strauss (St. Martin’s Press)

Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable from the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp. This biography explores their extraordinary love story and the silence surrounding queer women in Holocaust history, bringing their long-overlooked experiences to light.

Ances­tral Ally­ship: Lessons on Ally­ship as Spir­i­tu­al Prac­tice in the Week­ly Torah Portion
By Mike Moskowitz (Independently Published)

Ancestral Allyship, Rabbi Mike Moskowitz’s fifth book explores how our Jewish values tell us to practice allyship proactively in the effort to unite humanity. Rooted in Jewish ethics, Moskowitz argues that preventing dehumanization is a religious obligation rather than solely responding to injustice.

With All My Heart: Torah for Our Times
By Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum (Independently Published)

This collection of 20 thought-provoking sermons by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum explores some of today’s most pressing social, political and spiritual issues through a Jewish lens. Drawing on her 32 years as senior rabbi of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBTQ synagogue, Kleinbaum offers wisdom, compassion and a powerful call for justice, particularly within the queer Jewish community.

Courtney Shapiro is the Assistant Digital Editor for Hadassah Magazine. She has written for Woman’s World, First for Women and Best Life. Follow her on Instagram for book recommendations, reviews and more.