When 20-year-old stu­dent J. S. Mar­got took a tutor­ing job, lit­tle did she know it would open up an entire world.

In the fam­i­ly’s Ortho­dox Jew­ish house­hold she would encounter end­less rules – ​‘nev­er come on a Fri­day, nev­er shake hands with a man’ – and quirks she had not seen before: tiny tubes on the door­posts, sep­a­rate fridges for meat and dairy prod­ucts. Her ini­tial response was puz­zle­ment and occa­sion­al­ly anger, but as she taught the chil­dren and fierce­ly debat­ed with the fam­i­ly, she also began to learn from them.

Mazel Tov is a heart­warm­ing, provoca­tive, and dis­arm­ing­ly hon­est mem­oir of clash­ing cul­tures and unusu­al friend­ships, and of how, where adults build walls, some­times only chil­dren can dis­solve them.