Book Clubs

The Best Place on Earth - book cover

In a book club? Invite Ayelet to visit your Book Club via Skype, Facetime, or in person. In Hebrew or English!

  • Use the contact form below to get in touch.
  • Ask Ayelet a question on her Goodreads page
  • Read and listen to interviews with Ayelet here and here.
  • Visit the discussion guide below (or on the Jewish Book Council’s site, along with other relevant links.)

The Best Place on Earth Discussion Guide

  1. What are some of the themes that are threaded throughout the eleven stories?
  2. What do the characters in The Best Place on Earth have in common?
  3. Many of the stories are set against a background of war and conflict. How does the political and domestic intertwine in these stories?
  4. Discuss the use of foreign languages in the stories. What techniques did the author use to incorporate the Hebrew language in the book?
  5. Many of these characters are trying to get away from something: home, history, tradition, family, love. Talk about the theme of flight in these stories.
  6. The opening story, “Tikkun,” is about a meeting of former lovers against the backdrop of a bombing in Jerusalem. Why is the story called Tikkun?
  7. Many of the stories in the book deal with cultural clashes within families. What are the reasons for those clashes? How are they reconciled?
  8. The story “Invisible” features a Filipina caregiver working illegally in Israel. What is the role of magic in this story? How did you experience the ending of this story?
  9. Does the order of the stories create a narrative arc for the collection? Does the book as a whole have a sense of an ending?
  10. How did reading the stories complicate your notions of Israel and of the Jewish experience?
  11. What do you think of the title of the book? What is The Best Place on Earth?

Study Guides

Great Jewish Books offer Resource Kits and Study Guides for selected works, designed to support teachers who want to share this rich material with their students. Here you will find a downloadable resource kit and guide for one of the stories in the book, “Say it Again, Say Something Else,” created by Melissa Weininger.

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