Book I
Hineni: In Sarah’s Tent
A complete ritual that brings thirty-six women together in a shared rite.
Read about the book →Roots&Voice collection
Jewish Book Club Books for Conversation and Presence
Books for groups that want to read slowly, listen closely, and let a conversation become more than a series of quick opinions.
For the conversation after the chapter
A book club can become a room for real encounter.
People come to Jewish book clubs for many reasons. Some want the steady pleasure of reading with others. Some are looking for language that meets a question already moving through their lives. Some want Jewish learning that can hold complexity without making anyone prove that they belong in the room. The most memorable groups make space for all of this. They give people time to arrive, to speak from experience, and to hear a perspective that changes the texture of a familiar story.
Roots&Voice books are made for that kind of shared attention. Written by Laurie S. Sherman and published under Hineni Circle LLC, the collection brings together women’s voices, ritual, prayer, performance, and the ethical work of gathering. These are books a group can return to, rather than finish and set aside. A passage may become the center of one meeting. A question may follow readers home and return changed the next month. A scene can open into a reading aloud, a silence, or a conversation that makes more room for the people present.
The collection does not offer one correct Jewish experience or one kind of reader. It makes room for people who have long histories with Jewish text and practice, as well as people who are beginning, returning, questioning, or simply curious. The useful question is not whether everyone will respond in the same way. It is whether a book gives the group something honest enough to stay with together.
Choose a starting point
Five books, five ways into the room.
Each title has its own form. Let the kind of conversation you hope to hold guide your choice.
Book II
Voices
More than seventy Jewish women across time, each speaking once in her own register.
Read about the book →
Book III
Ritual
A disciplined framework for people who hold space, lead, teach, and gather others.
Read about the book →
Book V
Return to Presence
Prayer for entering Shabbat with steadiness, breath, and attention.
Read about the book →How to choose
Begin with the question your group is already carrying.
For a group drawn to many distinct voices, Hineni: Voices offers a wide field of Jewish women across time. Its monologues give readers a way to encounter witness, rebellion, devotion, art, and thought without reducing them to one point of view. A club might choose a small number of voices for each meeting and notice what changes when the group lingers with difference rather than reaching quickly for agreement.
For a gathering that wants to read aloud, Hineni: In Sarah's Tent offers a reader's-script form shaped around arrival, attention, voice, and movement. It can be especially meaningful for groups that want the shared act of reading to become part of the evening itself. No one needs to perform. Passing a section around the room or allowing a brief silence after a reading can be enough to give the text a different life.
For hosts, facilitators, teachers, and groups thinking about the shape of their own time together, Hineni: Ritual turns toward the practice of holding space. It offers language for considering how gatherings begin, what they ask of participants, and how a room can make more space for attention without becoming overly formal. It is a fitting choice when the group wants to reflect not only on what it reads, but on how it listens.
For readers who want a companion for Shabbat, Return to Presence holds Friday night and Saturday morning prayer in Hebrew, transliteration, and poetic English. It can support a book-club meeting that begins with a brief threshold into the evening, or it can be read privately between meetings. Kol Isha: The Women Speak offers another route into shared voice through reader's theater ritual for Yom Kippur.
A gentle shape for discussion
Make room for the book, and for one another.
Choose a passage, not a verdict.
Rather than beginning with whether everyone liked the book, start with a line, scene, or voice that stayed with someone. A specific passage gives readers something shared to return to, while leaving room for different responses.
Let questions remain open.
Jewish reading has room for disagreement, uncertainty, and more than one faithful interpretation. A question that does not resolve in one meeting may be the most useful thing a group carries forward.
Invite, do not require, personal response.
Some readers will connect a text to a memory or practice. Others may prefer to stay close to the page. Both are meaningful ways to participate. A thoughtful group lets people choose how much of themselves to bring into the conversation.
End with a way to return.
Close with one word, a question to keep company with, or a passage each person wants to revisit. A modest ending helps the reading remain present after the chairs are put away.
For readers and hosts
Books that honor the life already in the room.
A group does not need a perfect plan to begin. One person can bring a book to a kitchen table, a library room, a congregation, a classroom, or a circle of friends. The form may be simple: read a few pages before meeting, share a passage aloud, and allow the conversation to move at a human pace. What matters is the quality of attention the group brings to the text and to one another.
Roots&Voice is especially interested in the stories that are often treated as secondary, private, or already known. Women’s voices are not an added topic here. They are part of the ground from which the books speak. That makes the collection a natural companion for groups seeking Jewish feminist books, and for any readers who want a broader, more intimate field of Jewish life than a single official account can offer.
If your group, library, congregation, school, theatre, or community organisation is imagining a reading, ritual, performance, workshop, or conversation, Roots&Voice welcomes that beginning. The community work is carried by Hineni Project Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. You can learn about bringing Roots&Voice to your community or get in touch to share what you have in mind.
Frequently asked questions
Which book works best for a Jewish book club?
Choose the book that meets the conversation your group wants to have. Voices offers many women's perspectives, In Sarah's Tent invites shared reading aloud, Ritual turns toward how a room is held, and Return to Presence accompanies Shabbat and prayer.
Do we need Jewish studies experience?
No. These books are made for thoughtful readers, including groups whose members arrive with different histories, practices, and levels of familiarity.
Can we use a Roots&Voice book for a gathering or program?
Yes. Groups considering a reading, ritual, performance, workshop, or conversation can contact Roots&Voice to begin a conversation about what would fit their community.
Where can we find the books?
Visit the complete Roots&Voice collection to meet each title and follow its verified bookseller link where one is available.
Begin together