Jeffrey K. Salkin

Definitely a good book to consider for your kids once they are approaching that age. It really is designed for young born-Jews. I would not advise adult bnei mitzvah students to read it, especially if they are Jews by Choice. I am a JBC who is preparing for my bar mitzvah and the focus on the bar mitzvah's parents and grandparents just ended up as being very painful to me. I wish there was a book that would be more appropriate for adult JBC's who are preparing for this.

This valuable resource for teens preparing to become bar/bat mitzvah shows them, in their own language, how the Torah addresses the issues in their world and encourages them to grapple with real issues in the Bible.

After hearing Rabbi Salkin speak a few years ago, I had very high expectations for this book. It was an interesting read, but some chapters (The ones on Shifrah and Puah, the gentiles in Jonah and the Whale) were definitely better than others (Asnat). Reading this book was a good review of some stories from the Hebrew Bible.

I do think the book would have benefitted from some summary or general analysis at the end. Rabbi Salkin describes the final righteous gentile, and then there is no show more epilogue or conclusion, the book is over. Perhaps he took sermons he gave on various Torah portions and Bible stories and turned them into this book. show less

Now this was surprisingly a good book although it covers so many things that I have a hard time putting my finger on any one thing or subject that makes it interesting or good to read.