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Greenberg Families Library Hours
Summer Hours
June 28-September 6
- Monday: 8AM-5pm
- Tuesday: 8AM-5pm
- Wednesday: 8AM-5pm
- Thursday: 8AM-5pm
- Friday – Sunday: CLOSED
You must have an active SJCC or Greenberg Families Library membership to access the Library.
To purchase a Greenberg Families Library Membership visit the SJCC Front Desk.
Use of the library is included in your Soloway JCC membership!
- The latest Jewish Fiction and Non-Fiction available without long wait lists
- Extensive collection of books for children and young adults
- Foreign and English language DVDs including TV series, movies and documentaries
- MusicCDs from klez to classical to contemporary
- Israeli books and movies
- Computers available for use
To access our extensive collection click here to search the catalogue.
- Click on the Greenberg Families Library link and then hit the catalog button to begin searching.
Carlie MacPherson
Senior Librarian
(613) 798-9818 ext: 245
library@jccottawa.com
Greenberg Families Library Policies and Procedures
Effective July 2022, the Greenberg Families Library no longer accepts book donations.
Borrowing Books
You must have an active SJCC or Greenberg Families Library membership in order to borrow items.
Material requests will be held for a maximum of one week. Holds on new releases, or those with a waiting list of more than 3 people will be held for a maximum of 4 business days.
Find everything on our shelves from home using Greenberg Families Library Online Catalog
Book Return
The library’s book return box is outside the doors of the library.
All policies, procedures and operating hours are subject to change. Patrons will be notified of any updates.
Upcoming Events and Programs
Upcoming Programs
Check back soon for more!
New Titles
Fiction
Like Wafers in Honey by Leah Eskin
(2026 SJCC Jewish Book Festival Featured Author)
The story opens in the mountaintop town of Pitigliano, Italy, once called Little Jerusalem for its vibrant, centuries-old Jewish community. But the year is 1943. Mussolini has enacted anti-Jewish laws across Italy, and the family of Stella Fortuna struggles to maintain any sense of their former life.
Then one night a neighbor comes to their door holding a ricotta pudding and tells them, “You must leave now. You’re in grave danger.” The Nazis have arrived to help the Fascists of Italy enact their own Final Solution.
Grabbing what few things they can carry, and the pudding, Stella Fortuna escapes into the woods below Pitigliano with her two older brothers and younger sister, Marcella. What follows is a desperate months-long flight. Stella finds temporary and precarious shelter with sympathetic but fearful families in the countryside, dodging the ever-closer Fascists in pursuit. Meanwhile, she dreams of romance, the comforts of home, and the food that was not just her mother’s love, but the delicious expression of an entire culture in danger.
In a separate timeline, Edda Servi Machlin is a housewife in 1960s Westchester trying to make sense of a new culture, as well as the “spaghetti and meatballs” food that passes for Italian cuisine. With caustic wit, we see twentieth-century America through an immigrant’s eyes, someone who can never return to her former home because it no longer exists. Someone who comes to understand that it might be up to her to preserve the indelible flavors of an Italian-Jewish way of life that is in danger of extinction, as her family once was.
In between these two remarkable stories are more than forty recipes, updated for today’s cooks, all inspired by the life and example of Edda Servi Machlin, author of The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews.
Other new titles:
- Crossing the Bronx, by David Hirshberg
- The Girl Who Rode the White Lion, by Yishay Oshi Ron
- Homebound, by Portia Elan
- The May House, by Jillian Cantor
- Ransom, by Daniel Silva (Gabriel Allon Series, Book 26)
- The Safe House, by Christophe Boltanski
Non-Fiction
I, Wandering Jew: A Five-Century History of Our Modern Condition, by Yair Mintzker
2026 SJCC Jewish Book Festival Featured Author
Combining history, detective story, and memoir, a surprising and revealing account of the antisemitic myth of “the Wandering Jew.” The story behind the mythical figure of “the Wandering Jew” is one of the most fascinating tales in European history. In I, Wandering Jew, National Jewish Book Award-winning historian Yair Mintzker traces the tale back to its source, follows its many metamorphoses through five centuries, and relates it to the fraught present moment. According to a mysterious pamphlet published in 1602, the Wandering Jew was a real person named Ahasversus, who was cursed by Jesus to eternal wandering after refusing to help him as he was led to his crucifixion. For more than four hundred years, many otherwise reliable witnesses have claimed to have seen the Wandering Jew. Moving in reverse chronological order, I, Wandering Jew explores crucial episodes in the story of this figure. We meet an unforgettable, Wandering Jew-like character who appeared out of nowhere in Israel in the 1950s; a nineteenth-century novelist who was the first Jew to favorably describe the Wandering Jew; an eighteenth-century German scholar who saw the Wandering Jew emerging from a devastating fire; and the man who likely inspired the 1602 pamphlet. A work of history that reads like a detective story, I, Wandering Jew is also part memoir. As Mintzker discovers affinities between his own story and that of the Wandering Jew, the surprising history of an old antisemitic trope and its meanings becomes a profound meditation on home and exile, Judaism and Christianity, poetry and truth, the deep past and the present.
Other new titles:
- The Arab Case for Israel: And Other Essays from a Distant Conflict, by Hussain Abdul-Hussain
- Children of Abraham: The 1,400-Year History of Jewish-Muslim Relations, by Marc David Baer
- Music Between Your Ears: How Musical Engagement Powers the Human Brain, by Dr. Samuel Markind (2026 SJCC Jewish Book Festival Featured Author)
- Out of the Depths: The First Collection of Holocaust Songs, by Joseph Toltz and Anna Boucher
- The Renoir Girls: A Hidden History of Art, War & Betrayal, by Catherine Ostler
- There Once Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World, by Jane Ziegelman (2026 SJCC Jewish Book Festival Featured Author)
Juvenile
A Flame Burns On: Lighting the Yahrzeit Candle, by Richard Ho
A girl and her mom light a candle to honor the memory of a loved one in this gorgeously illustrated picture book about this special Jewish tradition. Each year, a girl and her mom light a yahrzeit candle on the anniversary of an uncle’s passing. Even though she was young when he died, her memories of him shine bright and clear: all the times they went camping, read together, and how he was there for every birthday. The mom and daughter spend the day exchanging their favorite stories, sometimes laughing or shedding a tear, and visiting his plot. His spirit lives on, rekindled in the yahrzeit candle’s flame. It’s then that the girl understands the true purpose of her family’s custom: to share, celebrate, and heal. With luminous art that glows on the page, A Flame Burns On is an unforgettable, poignant story about finding joy and light in the darkness, and an ode to the loved ones that stay in our hearts forever, long after they are gone.
- The Old Olive Tree: A Tisha B’Av Story for Kids, by Rachel Mintz
Libby – Digital and Audiobooks
The Libby app is the easiest way to get started with digital and audiobooks from your public library!
Download the free Libby app on any device to get started or visit libbyapp.com
Why Libby is your perfect reading companion:
- Eliminate wait lists for your favourite titles.
- Read or listen on your phone, tablet, or other e-reader.
- Make any text large print and adjust lighting settings for ebooks.
- Change the playback speed or set a sleep timer for audiobooks.
- Questions? Speak to your librarian, or get help in the app from the U.S.-based Libby support team.
- Install Libby for Android, iOS, or Fire tablets from overdrive.com/apps/libby. Or, visit libbyapp.com in your Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge browser.
- Email the Greenberg Families Library to set up your login credentials (library@jccottawa.com)
- In Libby, follow the prompts to find your library and sign in with your email.
- Browse your library’s collection and borrow a title.
- Borrowed titles appear on your Shelf and download to the app automatically when you’re on Wi-Fi, so you can read them when you’re offline.
- Tap Open In Libby, Open Audiobook to start reading or listening in the app.
- Tap Manage Loan to see options like Renew Loan and Return Early.
Happy reading!
Sefer Torah 1336
This is Sefer Torah 1336, the Ivanovice Scroll
Having arrived in Ottawa on permanent loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in Westminster, England, Sefer Torah 1336 was dedicated in 1998 and installed in the Soloway Jewish Community Centre’s Greenberg Families Library in April 2001. Where it has been ever since.
Sefer Torah 1336 comes from the town of Ivanovice, now part of the Czech Republic. Ivanovice is located approximately 7km from the district town of Vyskov. Until 1918, Ivanovice and the region were part of the Austrian Empire. Between the two World Wars, and during the postwar communist era, it was part of the Republic of Czechoslovakia.
History of the Jews in Ivanovice
It is unclear precisely when Jews first settled in Ivanovice, however, tombstones dating from the 17th century indicate that by that point there were a significant number of Jews living there. By 1727, a synagogue had been built. By the mid-20th century the majority of the Jews in the community spoke German.
In 1848, Jews throughout the Austrian Empire were emancipated and received full civil rights. Restrictions on movement were also removed, which led to a migration of Jews to larger towns and cities in search of more economic and educational opportunities. This resulted in a population decline of the Jewish community of Ivanovice. In 1857, the Ivanovice Jewish community’s population peaked at 483, which was approximately 20% of the town’s total population. However, by 1922, this population had decreased to only 80 members. By 1930, the Jewish population had dropped to just 64.
The Jews of Ivanovice and The Holocaust
When the 1938 Munich Agreement was enacted the Republic of Czechoslovakia was dissolved and in March 1939, the region of Bohemia and Moravia became a protectorate of Nazi Germany. This ushered in a period of discrimination and violence against the Jews of the area.
While we do not know for sure, it is most likely that the Jews of Ivanovice were deported to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) Ghetto along with the Jews of Brno around the end of 1941. From there, they would have been sent to a number of concentration and death camps. Jewish life was not renewed in Ivanovice after the war.
The Looted Torahs
During the Second World War the Nazis looted many items, including Torah from damaged Synagogues and stored them near Prague. After the war some 1,100 were recovered. Those that could be repaired were, but those that were not sparked a debate about what to do with them. It was determined that these Torahs would be used for educational purposes, displayed in Jewish Centers, museums, archives, schools, etc. around the world as a memorial and reminder of the Holocaust.
While we are unsure of the original provenance of Sefer Torah 1336, we believe it could have come from this Synagogue. This synagogue was active from the early 19th century until the outbreak of the Second World War. The Synagogue was reconstructed in 1951 but has since been converted into a Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
As written by Rabbi Kassel Abelson:
“A notice was sent to synagogues, museums, colleges and similar institutions throughout the world offering such a scroll on condition that they be kept on perpetual display as a reminder of the Holocaust. Over four hundred synagogues, museums, colleges, etc., have received such Torahs and keep them on display as a reminder of the Holocaust.”
For information on other Memorial Torah Scrolls please visit www.memorialscrolltrust.org
