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Originally Posted by eschwartz
Have you read her/others' work, and what do you think about them?
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Sorry, no, I haven't read Ruth Benjamin's freebies (I have a low read-rate for KDP stuff in general), and I should probably mention at this point that I'm an atheist from a secular background who lives in one of the most agnostic regions of Canada and the most acquaintance I've had with any religion in the past decade or so has been walking past the Scientology centre downtown on my way to the central library and I really just post what I see that pops up free that has a recognizable (non-self-)publisher and/or author with decent provenance in the form of previous trad-pub credentials.
That said, if you're willing to consider a few quasi-recommendations for Jewish-themed literary works I've personally read (or watched in adapted form) and enjoyed, I'll put the ones which immediately spring to mind under the cut (since it gets a bit long, and this is technically off-topic for the Kids/YA thread, though I'll mention that Mordecai Richler also wrote one of the classic Canadian children's storybooks):
Spoiler:
Disclaimer: none of these are dedicated Jewish religiously observant works in the same way that we have the dedicated Christian publisher freebies, and some of them are written by non-Jews. But all of them involve what seem to me to be prominent Jewish-background characters and themes where their background seems to be very important to the setting/plot, and IMHO as a secular humanist atheist, seem to be handled in a reasonably respectful manner, though YMMV.
- The Magicians of Night by Barbara Hambly (ISFDB, Wikipedia), 2nd in her Sun-Cross duology (it was actually meant to go to more books, but she never got around to writing the 3rd) of fantasy/real-world crossover. This is a self-contained story that draws back on stuff established in the 1st book, but can be read standalone as a WWII adventure, and stars a wizard from an alternate universe who's been tricked into working for the Nazi Occult Bureau and tries to find a means of escape, with the help of a Polish-American Jewish woman who herself is trying to find and free her Kabbalist father who's another of the Occult Bureau's prisoners.
According to the note in the back, while Hambly herself isn't Jewish, she does have distant relatives on one side of the family who left Poland just in time. This is an Open Road Media title and it tends to go on sale periodically (I got mine during one of their CyberMonday sale promos, although I've also owned it in paperback for some time, since Barbara Hambly is one of my favourite authors) and is couponable otherwise.
- The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals by Ann (ISFDB, Wikipedia) & Jeff VanderMeer (ISFDB, Wikipedia), which is Exactly What It Says In The Title. IIRC, Ann is Jewish, Jeff is not, and they argue (Jeff in the form of his persona as "The Evil Monkey") about which monsters make suitable munchies for observant Jews and why (the Chupacabra is not, but the vegetable lamb is). This is amazingly funny and rather educational for the uninitiated as to several moderately obscure mythological/folklore/urban legend critters, and kosher food laws as well. This was part of the Jeff VanderMeer's Weird Fiction bundle from StoryBundle.
- Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (ISFDB, Wikipedia). This was part of Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow's line of fairy-tale retellings, this one a post-Holocaust resetting of Sleeping Beauty, as a woman begins to retrace her roots after her grandmother's death and finding out just how much of her family history she doesn't know about. This is really very good and I highly recommend it (if you try only one book out of this list, it should be this one); Wikipedia says it was a Nebula finalist and has a Mythopoeic Prize.
- Peony by Nobel Prize-winner Pearl S. Buck (Wikipedia, and Wikipedia entry for the novel itself). This is an historical literary novel about the Kaifeng Jews of 19th century China, and deals with themes of separation and assimilation and intermarriage and maintaining faith despite outside not-so-much-pressure-from-alienation-as-apathy-in-the-face-of-acceptance. This is only a partial recommend as I'm only about halfway through this, and the prose phrasing seems a bit old-timey and stilted (this may or may not be a deliberate narrative stylistic choice to give some added historical flavour), but so far it's been pretty interesting and seems like it'll conclude promisingly. This was a $1.99 sale title from Open Road Media a few months ago and they'll probably drop it on promo again at some point.
- The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick by Canadian author Morley Torgov (Wikipedia) has been a freebie giveaway from re-publisher BevEditions a few times during Smashwords' Read An Ebook Week annual sale. This is a Jewish experience coming-of-age novel which won the 1983 Stephen Leacock Memorial Award for Humour, and was adapted into a movie (Wikipedia) which gets shown on CBC every so often. I haven't actually read the book even though I've got the freebie, but I did see a good chunk of the film (but not the entire thing, IIRC, as my viewing was interrupted), and it is pretty funny, with some poignant moments, and was highly recommended by some other MR members when it first came free a couple of years ago.
- The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (Wikipedia), another Jewish Canadian novelist, and one of our top literary figures. This is another work I know more from the film (Wikipedia) than the actual novel (Wikipedia entry; again, a Jewish experience coming-of-age type story, though more of a bleaker coming-to-terms-with kind of thing than TOCOMG), but both are generally considered to be quite good, and the film itself won a bunch of prizes, including an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and a Canadian Film Award for Film of the Year.
Hopefully there might be something which looks like it's of interest that you'll end up enjoying.