Havurah Shalom

Havurah's Book Discussion Group will read and discuss Burning Lights by Bella Chagall. This charming memoir by Bella Chagall, a gifted author and actress, recalls her childhood in Vitebsk, the Russian-Jewish market town where she and her husband, Marc Chagall, grew up. Warm reminiscences of her well-to-do Hasidic Jewish family life in pre-Revolutionary Russia are illustrated with 36 pen-and-ink drawings by Marc Chagall. The Chagalls wrote the book while living in France in the 1930s to commemorate their native town. The book is structured around the rhythms of Jewish life: weekly, monthly, yearly festivals as practiced by Bella's family. The title refers to the festive candles that lit up the holidays. From reviews: “a quite short and very poetic read;” “sweet without being cloying…as if Bella were in front of you, holding a conversation with you.”