Thanksgiving from Chelm • "The Feel Good Book of the Season"

A word about Thanksgiving…

Thanksgiving has always been a quintessential American holiday: families gather together and over-eat. Often there is football, and recently pre-game shopping. Occasionally conversation veers toward politics, or flaw-finding in the celebration of a history based on conquest. Sometimes we tell stories.

What I love about Thanksgiving is something that I think is at the heart of my Life in Chelm series -- the idea that community holds the heart of the individual, even when the individual is lost.

As we tuck in our napkins and pick up our forks and knives, I hope we can be grateful for the people in our lives.

And for anyone who feels alone or isolated, please come and visit Chelm. Then, when you're done reading, take a moment to find another person and reach out to give them a hug.
– Mark Binder, November 24, 2019

The Misadventures of Rabbi Kibbitz and Mrs. Chaipul

"Binder, one of Rhode Island’s leading storytellers, is back with a set of gentle tales about an elderly rabbi and the woman who runs the village restaurant and steals his heart."
–Alan Rosenberg, Providence Journal

"The Feel-Good Book of the Season!" – Kate Nagle, GoLocalProv

"great fun and full of humour." – Facts and Fiction Magazine, UK

"The Wise Men of Chelm’ reimagined… Mark Binder’s “The Misadventures of Rabbi Kibbitz and Mrs. Chaipul” will almost certainly make you laugh – and might even cause you to shed a tear." – James Rosenberg, Jewish Rhode Island Newspaper

“Village stories that deftly lift a curtain on a world of friendly humor and touching details of Jewish life.” – Kirkus Reviews

"The Lethal Latkes is not a murder mystery. It concerns some awful-tasting latkes (potato pancakes) and what you might call another Hanukkah miracle: love.” – The New York Times