Naomi Ragen Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Plays

Naomi Ragen is a published novelist, journalist, and playwright. She was born in America but has resided in Israel since 1971.

She attended Brooklyn College, graduating with her bachelor’s degree in the field of literature. She moved to Israel in 1971 along with her husband. Then she attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she graduated with her master’s degree in literature in 1978. Today, the author has four children. She lives in Jerusalem.

The author has come out with over a dozen novels, many of them which ended up becoming international best-sellers. She also wrote the play “Women’s Minyan”, which proved to be such a hit that to this day it has been put on over six hundred times in the National Theatre in Israel and the United States and Argentina.

Naomi Ragen has also served as a journalist. She has written for Israeli publications as well as abroad, for the Jerusalem Post, and she has written about different Jewish and Israeli issues on her blog list. She is Orthodox, an iconoclast, and a feminist, and works tirelessly to advocate in Israel for women’s rights. She actively campaigns against domestic abuse and works against the bias in rabbinical courts. She has also fought to help a Supreme Court case win on the subject of gender segregation on buses in Israel.

Naomi was born at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in July of 1949. Her mother was of the second generation to live in America, hailing from an Orthodox family. Her father was first-generation American and had come from Ukraine to New York when he was young. He assimilated well, doing what his father did and trying to fit in when it came to living in the new country.

Naomi would go to school in Rockaway at PS. 44, but then right before second grade began her father died after a small operation. The family was very affected by the loss. Her older brother was not happy at school and her mother applied for him to get a scholarship at a private Orthodox Hebrew day school in Far Rockaway. She paid the fee to test his IQ and after that had been done, they informed her that the brother would have to study Hebrew with first graders if accepted. Her brother did not like this and refused to attend. Her mother could not get the five dollars returned to her, so they asked if she had another child that might want to apply and that is how Naomi became enrolled in the Hebrew Institute of Long Island.

The author ended up being at the private school until it was time to graduate high school. She was unhappy with this at first, which was partially due to being used to living in a housing project where the kids were of color and lower to middle class. Transitioning to a school where the children were upper to middle class and were all white and all Jewish was difficult at first.

The kids at the school wore gloves and mohair sweaters, and the curriculum was also challenging, particularly as Naomi was not familiar with Hebrew and had not been in the school since the time of being in first grade. She was also having a tough time catching up in secular studies since this school was more rigorous than the one that she had come from. Naomi thought that since she was American, she couldn’t see why she needed to learn Hebrew and thought that she would never use it.

At her new school, Naomi learned daily prayers, Jewish law, and all about the Prophets and the Bible. The day would begin with everyone praying together. Once lunch time was over, grace would be sung after meals. Naomi began to become enchanted by the music and songs, the holiday preparation, and started to become bored of the dullness of her home. They would still watch cartoons on weekends, but the author began to want to go to synagogue and enjoy the light, the chalices, and the covers, where it was beautiful, mysterious and warm.

Naomi was in high school when things changed. Her best friend was a rabbi’s daughter, a nice girl that pulled her into her world where Naomi began to see its beauty and its value. She also gained some more rabbi-teachers that helped her learn Prophets, Torah, and mussar (spiritual guidance).

Jephte’s Daughter is the first book to come out from author Naomi Ragen. It was first released to readers in 1988. Pick up a copy and be a witness to this Jewish-American modern classic.

This is a journey into the hidden world of Chassidic women. The first novel to come out from Naomi Ragen has been noted as one of the most important Jewish books out there.

This is the story of Abraham Ha-Levi, an American businessman who is very wealthy. He also belongs to an Orthodox Jewish family who was very important and he is the last surviving male in that family. He decides that it is time to honor his inheritance of culture and religion and makes a drastic decision.

Abraham decides that the time is right to push his daughter into an arranged marriage. Batsheva is intelligent and beautiful, and her new husband studies the Torah devoutly and resides in Jerusalem. This is how Batsheva finds that all of a sudden she is in a totally new place with a new life, surrounded by people that are extremely religious and follow all laws absolutely.

Batsheva starts to become concerned as the more that she gets to know her husband, the more she finds out who he really is. He may have an image of being devoted to piety, but it only serves to hide how cruel he really is. Can Batsheva get out of this marriage or will she find that her father has betrayed her to a world that she cannot escape? Read this book to find out!

Sotah is the second novel to be released by Naomi Ragen. This powerful fictional work first came out in 1992.

When a beautiful young woman living in Jerusalem is accused of being an adulterer, she is forced to leave the country. She must now try to find a way that she can go to America and get her life back.

This is the story of three daughters coming close to the age of marriage. A sotah in their culture is a wife that has been accused of infidelity and must prove she is guileless by trial. Which of them is the Sotah, and will they be able to reclaim their life once it falls apart? Read this book to find out!