As 2023 draws to a close, we’re looking back at a year filled with original and translated fiction, stories of Jewish communities around the world, and personal essays by authors in Israel and Israeli authors abroad (our Witnessing series) that resonated with you in these last few fraught months. Below are the ten essays on PB Daily that you read the most this past year. (And if you’re ready to just skip to 2024, we’ve created a preview of fifteen books we can’t wait to come out this winter.)
“The Most Wanted Woman in WWII Netherlands: Hannie Schaft” by Buzzy Jackson
“Speaking Hebrew in Secret: Being an Israeli Abroad” by Maya Tevet Dayan
“The Virgin Grandmother” by Kate Schmier
Spending a Fortnight in Jew Town, Kochi by Shastri Akella
““Just like the Soul Returns to the Body’ ” Yaara Shehori
“A Demon for the Ages” by Sara Ronis
“Jews of the Spanish Homeland: Finding My Sephardic Family in a 1929 Film” by Elizabeth Graver
“The Legacy of the Holocaust in Lithuania” by Naomi Ragen
“Hunting in America” by Tehila Hakimi, translated by Joanna Chen
“That They Be Safe in the Land” by Ilana M. Blumberg
Simona is the Jewish Book Council’s managing editor of digital content and marketing. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a concentration in English and History and studied abroad in India and England. Prior to the JBC she worked at Oxford University Press. Her writing has been featured in Lilith, The Normal School, Digging through the Fat, and other publications. She holds an MFA in fiction from The New School.