Layers: Personal Narratives of Struggle, Growth, and Resilience from Jewish Women

by Shira Lankin Sheps

Layers is a collection of over thirty personal narratives featuring the challenges and triumphs of Jewish women living in Israel. Written in their own voices, each chapter is unique in offering a narrative full of raw emotion and universal experiences. These women teach us how to love through suffering and how to live beyond heartache. They teach us how to be sensitive to those who are different from us and open our minds to realities we never knew. With topics such as pregnancy loss and infertility, physical and mental health, grief, conversion, disability, antisemitism, terrorism, and more, the narratives depict the diversity of background and commonality of experience that connects us together. Each chapter features numerous full\-color images as well as reflection spaces and exercises for guided reading, contemplation, and discussion, creating an experience that is both personal and thought\-provoking.

435 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Chava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick summary: diverse women face diverse challenges. A book like this is obviously cathartic for these women, who talk (write) about their lives in a straighforward and honest manner. The beauty of this book is that none of the stories devolved into a "pity party," and none of these women came across as victims. They were stories of heroism, both in matters big and small, and accounts of women who showed courage, faith, and perseverance.

A lot of the women profiled in the book are "Facebook friends," so what I knew about them was what they posted on Facebook. The title is truly apt, as I learned what lies under the surface, beneath the layers, of so many amazing women.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is outstanding. The writing is beautiful and the stories are incredible. It really makes you realize the lives that strangers around you have lived.