10 Canadian books to read for Jewish Heritage Month
May is Canadian Jewish Heritage Month. In recognition of this month, here's a reading list of poetry, fiction and nonfiction by Jewish Canadians.
If you're interested in poetry, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is accepting submissions until June 1. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems of a maximum of 600 words (including titles).
Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari
In Songs for the Brokenhearted, Zohara is a 30-something Yemeni Israeli woman living in New York City, a life that feels much simpler than her childhood growing up in Israel. When her sister calls to let her know of their mother's death, she gets on a plane with no return ticket and begins the journey of unravelling lost family stories.
Ayelet Tsabari is the author of The Art of Leaving, which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir and was a finalist for the Writer's Trust Hilary Weston Prize and The Best Place on Earth, which won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. She spent years living in Canada and is now based in Tel Aviv. Tsabari's short story Green was shortlisted for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize.
How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert
When Toronto-based journalist Bonny Reichert turned 40, she quit her job and enrolled in culinary school — a life-changing decision that pushed her to explore her relationship with food in writing. This exploration, along with a critical bowl of borscht in Warsaw, led Reichert to writing her memoir, How to Share an Egg, which dives into how food shapes her history as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
Reichert is a journalist and chef based in Toronto. She was formerly an editor at Today's Parent and Chatelaine and has written for The Globe and Mail. She won a National Magazine Award and was on the longlist for the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize. She teaches writing at the University of Toronto.
No Jews Live Here by John Lorinc
No Jews Live Here explores John Lorinc's Hungarian Jewish family history during the Holocaust, the 1956 Revolution and eventual move to Toronto. It follows Lorinc's grandmother, grandfather and father's experiences with the Nazis. No Jews Live Here uses historical insight and human stories to chart one family's trajectory across cities and cultures.
Lorinc is an editor and journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in publications including the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Walrus. His books include Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias and The New City. Lorinc received the 2019/2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy and the 2022 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.
Talking to Strangers by Rhea Tregebov
Talking to Strangers is a poetry collection that explores new encounters with people and objects. As is characteristic of celebrated poet Rhea Tregebov, the book dabbles in the art of recollection and elegy with skill and tenderness.
Talking to Strangers won the poetry prize for the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards.
Tregebov is a Vancouver-based poet, novelist and children's writer. She's written seven books of poetry and two novels, including Rue des Rosiers, and has won the J. I. Segal Award, the Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Pat Lowther Award and the Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award.
Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey, with Leslie Jamison
Peggy tells the story of Peggy Guggenheim and her rise to making her name synonymous with art and genius. From her early beginnings in New York as the daughter of two Jewish dynasties to her adventures in the European art worlds, she is forced to balance her loyalty to her family and her desire to break free from conventions and live her own original life.
Rebecca Godfrey was an author and journalist known for her books The Torn Skirt, which was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the award-winning true crime story Under the Bridge, which was adapted into a Disney+ series. She grew up in Canada but lived in upstate New York. Peggy is her final novel, completed by Leslie Jamison after she died.
Jamison is the Brooklyn-based author of The Empathy Exams, The Recovering, the novel The Gin Closet and the memoir Splinters.
Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey
Watch Out for Her is about a young mother named Sarah who thinks her problems are solved when she hires a young babysitter, Holly, for her six-year-old son. Her son adores Holly and Holly adores Sarah, who is like the mother she never had. But when Sarah sees something that she can't unsee, she uproots her family to start over.
Her past follows her to this new life, raising paranoid questions of who is watching her now? And what do they want?
Watch Out for Her was championed by Olympic gold medallist Maggie Mac Neil on Canada Reads 2025.
Samantha M. Bailey is a journalist and editor in Toronto. Her first thriller, Woman on the Edge, was released in 2019 and was an international bestseller. Her other novels include A Friend in the Dark and Hello, Juliet. Her journalistic work can be found in publications including NOW Magazine, The Village Post, The Thrill Begins and The Crime Hub.
As Good a Place as Any by Rebecca Păpucaru
In the novel As Good a Place as Any, Paulina and her brother Ernesto flee Chile's violent 1973 coup and seek refuge in Toronto. Paulina is on her way to achieving her dreams of becoming a star when she lands a big role, but when she participates in an underground abortion-rights movement, she's forced to choose between her personal ambitions and her newfound purpose.
Rebecca Păpucaru is a Montreal-based writer. Her poetry collection The Panic Room won the 2018 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry, was a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her work has appeared in the Grain, The Dalhousie Review and The New Quarterly, among others. Her novella Yentas won The Malahat Review's 2020 Novella Prize. As Good a Place as Any is her debut novel.
Something, Not Nothing by Sarah Leavitt
Following the medically assisted death of her partner of 22 years, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt began small sketches that quickly became something new and unexpected to her. The abstract images mixed with poetic text, layers of watercolour, ink and coloured pencil combine in Something, Not Nothing to tell a story of love, grief, peace and new beginnings.
Leavitt is a Vancouver comics creator and writing teacher. Her debut book was Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me.
Do You Remember Being Born? by Sean Michaels
Do You Remember Being Born? follows a famous poet named Marian Ffarmer, who after years of dedicating herself singularly to her art has started to question her life choices. After receiving an invitation to the Silicon Valley headquarters of one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Marian begins collaborating with a state-of-the-art poetry bot named Charlotte. What follows is a journey of self-discovery for both Marian and Charlotte, as the two begin to form a friendship unlike any Marian has ever known.
Do You Remember Being Born? won the 2024 Vine National Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction.
Sean Michaels was born in Stirling, Scotland and moved to Montreal, where he currently lives, when he was 18 years old. His first novel, Us Conductors, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2014 and was nominated for the Amazon First Novel Award, the Kirkus Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Michaels is also the founder of the music blog Said the Gramophone.
Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
In Doppelganger, Naomi Klein blends political reportage and cultural analysis to explore the concept of Mirror World, where elements of far-right movements attempt to appeal to the working class. The book examines issues such as the rise of anti-vaxxers, the implications of artificial intelligence in content curation and how society constructs identities to engage and interact on social media. By referencing thinkers such as Sigmund Freud and bell hooks, Klein also connects to greater social themes to share how one can break free from the Mirror World.
Doppelganger won the inaugural Women's Prize for Nonfiction.
Klein is the Montreal-born author of international bestsellers including This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, No Is Not Enough, and On Fire, which have been published in more than 35 languages. She is an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of British Columbia and the founding co-director of UBC's Centre of Climate Justice.
