cover image Jewish Stories of Love and Marriage: Folk Tales, Legends, & Letters

Jewish Stories of Love and Marriage: Folk Tales, Legends, & Letters

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and Peninnah Schram. Rowman and Littlefield, $36 (262p) ISBN 978-1-4422-3898-5

Rabbi Sasso and storyteller Schram, in a synergistic collaboration, have created an engaging compilation of Jewish love letters and love stories. Beginning with tales about the love relationships of biblical couplings (many interwoven with rabbinic midrash), the book also includes Jewish folktales about courtship, fascinating love letters by Jewish historical figures, and a diverse collection of contemporary stories of meeting, loving, and joining in marriage. The collection highlights both the differences and the commonalities between present-day and past experiences of love and marriage. In part a celebration of modern, romantic love, this book is also about the covenantal relationship between members of a couple (with same-sex couples explicitly included), as well as love's subtleties, conflicts, and hardships. The book concludes with a chapter designed to help a couple to write their own love story. Likely to appeal to a broad range of readers, the book is of particular value to those celebrating a wedding or anniversary. (Sept.)