The Ohr Kodesh Book Club meets monthly on the first Wednesday of each month at 12:00 noon at Ohr Kodesh (the Club currently meets virtually).

January 5 - fiction The Tunnel by A.B. Yehoshua

From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed Israeli author, a suspenseful and poignant story of a family coping with the sudden mental decline of their beloved husband and father—an engineer who they discover is involved in an ominous secret military project

Until recently, Zvi Luria was a healthy man in his seventies, an engineer living in Tel Aviv with his wife, Dina, visiting with their two children whenever possible. Now he is showing signs of early dementia, and his work on the tunnels of the Trans-Israel Highway is no longer possible. To keep his mind sharp, Zvi decides to take a job as the unpaid assistant to Asael Maimoni, a young engineer involved in a secret military project: a road to be built inside the massive Ramon Crater in the northern Negev Desert.

The challenge of the road, however, is compounded by strange circumstances. Living secretly on the proposed route, amid ancient Nabatean ruins, is a Palestinian family under the protection of an enigmatic archaeological preservationist. Zvi rises to the occasion, proposing a tunnel that would not dislodge the family. But when his wife falls sick, circumstances begin to spiral . . .

The Tunnel—wry, wistful, and a tour de force of vital social commentary—is Yehoshua at his finest.

Register for the session on Zoom: 

For further information and to join the book club email list, contact Natalie Cantor at 301-933-3776 or nanacantor@gmail.com.