Sunday Jews

novel by Calisher

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July 17, 2026

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Sunday Jews is a 2003 novel by Hortense Calisher that explores themes of identity within a diverse family. This eclectic family includes an art expert, an atheistic rabbi, an anthropologist, and an agnostic Irish Catholic. Calisher, known for her elegant prose and insightful character portrayals, often drew from her own life for her fiction, which was frequently published in The New Yorker. The novel delves into the complexities of belonging and belief within a family that bridges various cultural and religious backgrounds.1

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Hortense Calisher
Sunday Jews (2003) explores issues of identity in an eclectic family, which includes an art expert, an atheistic rabbi, an anthropologist, and an agnostic Irish Catholic. In 2004 Calisher published the memoir Tattoo for a Slave, the story of her slave-owning grandparents and her parents’…
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Sunday Jews (2003) explores issues of identity in an eclectic family, which includes an art expert, an atheistic rabbi, an anthropologist, and an agnostic Irish Catholic. In 2004 Calisher published the memoir Tattoo for a Slave, the story of her slave-owning grandparents and her parents’…
Read More