Nonfiction History

In The Messiah Comes Tomorrow, veteran journalist Alan Lupo recounts the stories of working-class Jews, both those he grew up with in Boston and those he interviewed elsewhere over four decades.

"For too long now," he writes, "the perception of Jews in America is that of an upper-middle-class people engaged mainly in 'the professions' and rarely doing the dirty work. Thanks to the clichés of modern literature and film, the Jew is seen as a kvetch, a whining, self-pitying, mother-resenting character. Lost, somehow, are the others―the working stiffs, the small-time business owners, the amateur scholars, the bookies and street sluggers. . . . Such characters, very few of them famous, are part of the rich American landscape."

In this selection of columns and profiles, Lupo vividly evokes the poetry, passion, and daily struggles of common men and women. We meet the aging burlesque comedian, the bookie who swore he would not rat on his Mob associates, the dealer in secondhand clothing, the aunt and uncle who would never move up to a better apartment. Lupo captures the humor as well as the pathos of people in transition from insularity to assimilation, delineating their lamentations and wisecracks, their fatalistic humor and street smarts. The book is both a portrait of and a tribute to a culture gradually disappearing from the American scene.

This collection of books featuring Jewish main characters is decidedly non-comprehensive. As we come across books that are described as having Jewish main characters, we add them to this database. The creators of the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge have not read all (or even most) of the books in this database. We have gathered information from many sources and not all may be accurate. Inclusion of a book in our database does not imply endorsement or approval. There is always the possibility that antisemitism may be present in a book, either written into a character's experience or through malicious or ignorant caricature or stereotypical portrayal of Jewish characters and culture. Please take care of yourselves as you read. 

PLEASE let us know if you encounter a book in this database that does not have a Jewish main character, if you have corrections or additions for a book's genre categories, or if you have any other concerns about the inclusion of a particular book in this database.