Book Club
The next meeting of the SPBTS Book Club will be Monday,
February 21 at 7pm via Zoom. The Dove Keepers by Alice
Hoffman will be discussed.

Synopsis: In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months
against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean
desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women
and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event,
Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily
bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come
to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth,
and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village
baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers;
she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.

The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the
desperate days of the siege. All are dove keepers, and all are also keeping secrets – about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.