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The Feinberg Library

 

About the Library

The Feinberg Library is an integral part of the Congregation Mishkan Tefila community. The Library fulfills critical needs of the Hebrew, Sunday and Nursery Schools and is incorporated into their curricula.  Classes are frequent and welcome visitors to the Library.

The Library provides all congregants with access to a wide variety of Judaic library materials and enrichment.  Our collection encompasses children’s literature, adult fiction, holiday books, halakhah guides, Israeli history, memoirs and more.

The Feinberg Library offers:
• Over 10,000 volumes of Jewish books

• The Encyclopedia Judaica, both online and in print.
• CD, audiobook, video and large print collections.
• A self-check-out system.
• A professional librarian.
• A monthly adult book discussion group.
• A cart of children’s books in the Sanctuary every Shabbat.
• The Clara Weitz Research Center with a
computer available for teachers, staff and members.

 

Come and See Us

The Library is open whenever the synagogue is open.  Feel free to come in and browse. Fill in a slip from the box on the desk if you take a book out, and return books in the book drop in the hall. Right inside the back door is a children's corner where young members can make themselves at home.

Barbara is here on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons after 1 pm during the school year. If you want to see her at another time about a book you want or services you’d like to have the library work on for you, please call x3231 or email librarian@mishkantefila.org to make an appointment, and she'll be happy to accommodate you.

Contact Myrna at myrna.cohen@comcast.net if you'd like to learn more about our library. Please consider becoming a volunteer. You'll be needed and deeply appreciated.

Myrna Cohen, Library Chair

Barbara Mende, Librarian

Find Your Favorites

If you’re looking for a book with a Jewish theme – or one by a Jewish author such as Alan Dershowitz or Allegra Goodman – look for it here first. If you don’t see it, ask us about it; we may be able to order it. We’re open to anything connected with Jewish culture.

Please come into the Library and look through some of your old favorites as well as our new additions. We have many works by familiar authors such as Saul Bellow, Chaim Potok and Herman Wouk for you to read and enjoy again.

In our Judaica collection we have books on and about Maimonides, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Mordecai Kaplan. Our biography section includes books on the lives of Herzl, Dayan, Dreyfus, Szold, Gershwin, Shcharansky, Goldwyn and Koufax. We collect the winners of such prizes as the National Jewish Book Awards and the Sydney Taylor Book Awards for children's books.

Library Book Club
Our Book Club meets in the library on the third Thursday of every month at 1:00pm. Bring a dairy, parve or kosher lunch at 12:30 if you like, to enjoy with our beverages and great conversation. On February 18 we'll discuss The Good Book, an irreverent romp through the Bible by Slate editor David Plotz. Our March 18 selection is Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Watch this page for updates.

Please bring your ideas for books we can read at future meetings; we decide together on future selections.

 

New Titles

Everyone involved in our leadership, and everyone interested in building Jewish Institutions, will learn something from Erica Brown's Inspired Jewish Leadership: Practical Approaches to Building Strong Communities.  Brown draws from Ancient models of Jewish leadership as well as contemporary business literature. Another perspective: Rabbi Dov Moshe Lipman's Time-out uses "sports stories as a game plan for spiritual success."

 

After reading the first two novels in Maggie Anton's Rashi's Daughters trilogy, many members have eagerly awaited the third book.  Rachel: A Novel of Love and the Talmud in Medieval France is here and should be another winner.

 

Enjoy and learn from Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by  Michael Oren, Israel's American-born ambassador to the U.S. And just for fun, wind down with Drinking Problems at the Fountain of Youth by Boston's Beth Teitell.

 

Congregational Programs

The Library is a leader in planning and coordinating our One Synagogue, One Book and The Rabbi Reads programs. Our One Synagogue, One Book reading is Robert Pinsky's The Life of David. We have ample copies available. Watch for programs based on the life and times of David, such as the recent discussion of kingship and panel on the ethics of war.

For Children and Young Adults

Our collection includes picture books, storybooks, chapter books, and huge numbers of holiday books. We have a wide variety of titles that will capture the interest of young adults.  Our new six-volume Rebecca: An American Girl series, depicting an immigrant family in 1914, is the companion to the popular new doll. We also maintain a Shabbat Cart, which is outside the sanctuary for children to use when they come to services.

We have several new titles for our younger readers. T.S. Yavin's All-Star Season, which reaches us just in time for spring training, is the tale of two baseball-playing brothers. The narrator of Lotty's Lace Tablecloth by Israeli author Tami Lehman-Wilzig tells of the lace tablecloth that her great-great-great-grandmother sold to Empress Elizabeth of Austria.

 

The Sydney Taylor Awards for children's books came out in January, and we have most of them. You've Never Heard of Sandy Koufax? should grab even kids who thought they knew all about him. Benjamin and the Silver Goblet is a delightful tale of Joseph's baby brother in Egypt. The Civil War story The Yankee at the Seder is great Passover reading, and the preschool crowd should love the Passover tale Nachshon, Who Was Afraid to Swim.

 

Holiday Notebooks
Look for a loose-leaf binder on the coffee table as each holiday approaches. It contains little known facts gleaned online about the holiday, its history, and tips for celebrating it - plus games and puzzles for students and adults.


 
  300 Hammond Pond Parkway, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 617.332.7770