Reading challenges have become popular in recent years as a fun way for readers to help guide their reading for the year. A challenge can be as simple as picking a certain number of books to read during the year, or as complex as a set of 52 different prompts that have to be matched to 52 different books. People take on reading challenges for many reasons: to encourage themselves to read outside their comfort zone, to diversify their reading (which could mean anything from reading a range of different books to reading diverse authors and characters), or to "game-ify" their reading as it can be quite a fun puzzle to match up prompts and books. Reading challenges are also a unique way to read in community, where everyone is working on the same challenge though they may be reading different books. Many readers doing the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge are motivated by the desire to see themselves reflected in the genres they love, or to experience meeting Jewish characters in unexpected places.

The Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, also known as the Jewish Genre Challenge, is a fun way to guide some of your reading for the year. The idea behind the challenge is to read books with Jewish main characters across different genres of books, with a focus on what is commonly called "genre literature" or "genre fiction" - stuff like mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, horror, action and adventure, and so on. Take the challenge to read more Jewishly in 2024!

There are three steps to take to participate in the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge. 1. Pick your challenge. Look at the two challenges described on the Challenges page, the Genre Challenge and the Prompts Challenge, and choose which one you will do (or both). If you choose the Genre Challenge, decide whether your goal is 4, 6, or 8 books. 2. Join the JGC community. Join our Goodreads group, which is our main hub for information and participation. Declare your challenge choice, track your progress, share book recommendations, and ultimately announce your triumphant completion. 3. Read! Read books throughout 2024 that fulfill the challenge you have chosen. Good starting points for finding books are the JGC Listopias (book lists) on Goodreads, the articles linked to in our Resources section, and our searchable database. There are many, many more qualifying books than we've been able to catalog and include, so these resources are only to provide suggestions. You are free to read any book that fits the criteria of the challenge. Once you've finished the challenge, let the community celebrate you in our Challenge Completions thread.

Thank you so much! We would love your help! There are many ways you can contribute to the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge. The first is, of course, participating in the challenge and joining us to talk all things Jewish genre books in our Goodreads community group. The second is talk it up to everyone you know! Do you have Jewish friends and family you enjoy talking about books with? Does your rabbi add literary and pop culture references to their talks? Would your book club be interested in focusing on a few Jewish books this year? Maybe you can do the challenge together. Are you and your Jewish community exhausted from the misery of Fall/Winter 2023 and ready to bring in a more lighthearted spot of Jewish-themed fun? Maybe a sexy Jewish romance or fascinating Jewish whodunit are exactly what you need right now. Are you an author, bookseller, rabbi, scholar, or other person who has a unique point of view to share about Jewish genre books? We would love to interview you! Please contact us to talk further. Are you a book influencer or Jewish influencer? Perhaps a Jewish book influencer? If so, please help get the word out about the Jewish Genre Challenge! The more people who participate, the more fun the challenge will be, and the more hidden gems of Jewish genre literature we'll be able to uncover and share. You can find us here on Instagram. Please contact us if you need any materials or information to share. We need mods for our Goodreads and Facebook groups, please contact us if you're interested. Being a mod is a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of the community. If you have book suggestions to add to our database, we would love to hear from you. You can also head over to Goodreads and add them to our booklists. If you spot a book in our database that doesn't actually have a Jewish main character, definitely let us know. If you notice a book in our database that you feel is an antisemitic or stereotyping portrayal of its Jewish character(s), we want to hear that so we can let potential readers know as well. If you feel a book's genre has been mislabeled, or has additional genres to tag, please share that. Genres are the heart of the Jewish Genre Challenge so we do want to get those right.

There are two ways to complete the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, which can lead to some confusion about how many books to read to complete the challenge. If you choose to do the Genre Challenge, you pick your goal: 4, 6, or 8 books. If you choose to do the Prompts Challenge, you must read books to fulfill all six prompts. However, it's up to you whether you read 6 books, one for each prompt, or if you read a smaller number of books that fulfill more than one prompt each.

The distinction between "genre fiction" and other fiction is mostly determined by marketing categories; there are no hard and fast boundaries between one kind of fiction and another. However, readers tend to say they mainly encounter Jewish characters in historical fiction (mostly about the Holocaust) and character-driven literary fiction. Very rarely if ever do they recall finding a Jewish character in, for example, a cozy mystery, a hardboiled detective story, a Regency romance, or a sci-fi set in space. Jewish readers who love genre fiction are intrigued to see themselves reflected in their favorite genres. Non-Jewish readers who love genre fiction are curious and interested to encounter Jewish characters in unfamiliar settings. For the Genre Challenge, at least 2 of the books you read must be from genre fiction, which we have defined as: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Mystery, Crime, Thriller/Suspense, Horror, Western, Adventure, Action/Spy, Beach Read/"Chick Lit", Paranormal, Dystopian, and Military Fiction. There may be other genres you consider "genre fiction" - it's your challenge, so you can make that call. And if you think we missed one, please let us know! Historical Fiction is sometimes included in the list of "genre fiction genres" but we exclude it from the Jewish Genre Challenge list because it is one of the most common genres for Jewish characters. You can still read Historical Fiction as part of the Jewish Genre Challenge - and we have some great books in our database that find Jewish characters in all kinds of interesting settings and time periods - you just can't use a book that is solely Historical Fiction to fulfill the "2 Genre Fiction Books" requirement of the Genre Challenge. Any book from the above listed genres that takes place in a historical time period does still qualify, however, like a romance in Regency London, a mystery in 1600s Prague, or an action-adventure tale in 1950s Jerusalem.

To read about why we focus on main characters, check out our About page. If a book has more than one main character it's fine for only one of them to be Jewish. The “main character” in a memoir is the author. If a book has no main character (e.g. essays, cookbook), the author and topic must be Jewish.

Jewish characters do not need to be religious or practice Judaism. Jews are an ethno-religious group that includes both secular and religious members.

If you look up any list of Jewish literature, the first books you find in almost any category will be related to WWII and the Holocaust. The Jewish Genre Challenge highly encourages readers to step outside that time period to explore other Jewish stories. For the Genre Challenge this isn't a hard rule, you may feel differently & want to include books set in this era. The Prompts Challenge does have one prompt that specifically calls for reading a history - fiction or non-fiction - not set during WWII or Biblical times. Check out our database for some suggestions of historical books featuring Jewish characters in all kinds of interesting settings and time periods.

You absolutely can! It's so important for Jewish kids, teens, and young adults to see themselves reflected in books of all genres. We are all for showing those books some love.

There are two ways to complete the challenge: the Genre Challenge and the Prompts Challenge. For both challenges books must have at least one Jewish main character. If the book doesn't have characters, for example cookbooks or books of essays, both the topic and author must be Jewish. For the Genre Challenge each book you read must be from a different genre. At the start of the challenge, you will choose whether you want to read 4, 6, or 8 books. Two of the books you read must be from the "genre fiction" categories - mystery, romance, sci-fi, etc. For a full list of accepted genres view the complete Genre Challenge description. For the Prompts Challenge you must fulfill a set of six prompts by reading books with Jewish main characters (or Jewish topics and authors if the book doesn't have characters). You get to decide if you will read one book for each prompt, or find books that fulfill more than one prompt. For the list of prompts, view the complete Prompts Challenge description. And that's it! We have a Goodreads group where you can let the community know your plan, track your progress, and celebrate when you complete the challenge. You'll also find book recommendations and book discussions. If you want acknowledgement that you're doing the challenge, and when you complete the challenge, that's the place to go. But you may also just want to complete the challenge for yourself, and that's fine, too.

Generally the reward for completing a reading challenge is the satisfaction of completing your goal. There is no prize for the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, but when you complete the challenge please come tell the community in our Challenge Completion thread so we can cheer for you!

Right now there's no official newsletter for the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, but 2024 is our first year and we have all kinds of plans! We want to gather your contact info now so we can send updates and special features as they evolve. Plans in the works include a special focus on one genre each month with highlighted book recommendations, as well as interviews with authors, booksellers, rabbis, and other readers of note, talking about Jewish genre fiction. It goes without saying that we will never sell or share your contact info or use it for anything other than sending infrequent updates about the Jewish Genre Challenge. You can find the newsletter signup at the very bottom of this page.

Some reading challenges provide a set list of books to read, or a list of books to choose from. For the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, you may read any book you want that fulfills the criteria. Here on this site we have begun a database of Jewish genre fiction as well as assorted other books of different genres. Our catalog is far from complete - we have many titles still to add, and even then we've surely only scratched the surface of what is out there. The database is here only to help you find your books. You may read any book, whether or not it is in the database. In our Goodreads community, we have community-created book lists for different genres and a list for each of the six prompts in the Prompts Challenge. Our Resources page has links to articles and book titles that explore Jewish genre fiction in more depth, from a list of Jewish romances for Bridgerton fans to a round-up of Jewish horror picks from fellow horror authors. Disclaimer: We haven't read most of the books in the site database ourselves, and the community-created booklists are open to all members of the community. There may be books listed that don't have Jewish main characters and so don't meet the criteria of the challenge. We are also gathering titles written in many different time periods. So you may encounter antisemitism or stereotyping of Jewish characters and culture as you read, as well as sexism, racism, homophobia, and other artifacts of the "old days" of literature. Read with care! If you encounter antisemitism or stereotyping in a book, we have a thread in our Goodreads group where you can let other readers know in case that's something they would prefer not to read.

When you finish reading a book for the challenge, come to the Goodreads community group and let us know! First update your Challenge Plan so you and everyone else can see you're closer to your goal. Then visit the Genres or Prompts section and post about your book in the relevant thread. If you just read a Jewish horror novel and it was great, let other readers know in the Horror thread! If you just read a book in translation and it fell flat for you, let everyone know in the Prompts section in the thread for Prompt #2: Read a book in translation. If you have more to say about the book, post in our monthly Book Chat. Then it's time to find your next read! Use the genre and prompt specific threads in the Goodreads group, community-generated book lists, and the database here to help track down your next book.

Congratulations on meeting your goal! We hope that you enjoyed your experience of reading a little more Jewishly in 2024. When you have met your personal goal and completed the challenge, please come tell the community in our Challenge Completion thread so we can cheer for you!

Who knows! (Just kidding.) (Kind of.) Until recently, genre fiction in particular only rarely received mainstream attention from critics and media. So just because we've never heard of a book from 1993 doesn't mean it won't be a fun read. That being said, we are casting our net as wide as we possibly can, to gather in all the genre books with all the Jewish main characters. So it's likely some of them won't be to your taste, and a few might even be truly bad. That comes with the territory though. We're doing this challenge because we want to go outside the bounds of the expected. There are reasons why many Jewish readers can't recall reading a single book in their preferred genre with a Jewish protagonist. If we had an abundance of well-known books about Jewish characters to choose from in every genre, there probably wouldn't even be a Jewish Genre Challenge. So let's take some risks together and find out. Let's pick up books with cheesy covers and weird back cover blurbs, open up those cheesy covers, and just start reading. Let's find hidden gems and point each other towards them, and discover books where maybe the writing is awful but the Jewish portrayal is so resonant and sincere. If you feel like your reading time is too limited to spend it experimenting, or you know you lose steam fast when a book isn't truly great, there are enough well-known, well-loved genre books with Jewish main characters out there to complete this challenge. That's where our Goodreads and Facebook groups come in. Head over to the Goodreads group and visit the genre and prompt-specific discussions to see what others are recommending or considering reading themselves. On the Facebook group you can make your own post describing exactly what you're looking for and the community will help you find the right fit.

The Jewish Genre Challenge focuses on genre fiction, and genre fiction tends to go out of print pretty fast to make room for new publications, all but the biggest and best-known titles. Libraries also have a big turnover in genre fiction; once a genre book stops being requested it usually makes way for something newer. There are a lot of older Jewish genre books that are almost lost to history now, and we're not even talking about those from the 1950s or 1960s. There are out of print books from the late 1990s and early 2000s that may be somewhat difficult to track down. It's up to you if you want to make a treasure hunt out of tracking down older titles from online used booksellers, or stick with more recently published titles that are available at most libraries and bookstores. The challenge should be completely possible to finish entirely from the library or with in-print purchased books - there are current Jewish titles from every genre - but if one of the older books or series sounds intriguing it may mean it's time to do some digging!