SONGS WITHOUT WORDS

An unforgettable account of a Chassidic Jewish woman's struggle with faith in the face of grave illness and the death of her son.

A Rabbi's wife and a member of the Chassidic Jewish sect, Ester Zirkind was not a likely candidate to write a memoir.

First-person accounts of this ultra-orthodox group are rare, and rarer still are books written by people who still live within the community. But Zirkind is a born writer who tells an unforgettable story in Songs Without Words, an intimate memoir that David Bezmozgis calls “bold and brave written with great sensitivity and complexity.”

SONGS WITHOUT WORDS chronicles Zirkind's journey from marriage to motherhood, then to the discovery of a rare form of cancer that threatened her life and nearly destroyed her dreams of having enough children to fill the many chairs around her Shabbos table—traditionally a Chassidic woman's highest calling. Not long after seeking treatment, Ester had to endure the most devastating event of all: the sudden death of her toddler son. Her faith nearly shattered, Ester describes in raw and unflinching prose how she found the strength to turn back to God, and to the family and community that helped her survive.

An alumna of the Humber School for Writers, Ester has been mentored by David Adams Richards and her writing has been workshopped by Wayson Choy and David Besmozgis. She has written a memoir that invites the reader to look close-up at a Jewish community known for its enigmatic mysticism, the world of Chabad Chassidim. David Adams Richards calls her book “wonderful” and “the kind of work a publisher should be honored to publish.” When she is not writing, Ester is a Judaic Studies teacher, a Rabbi's wife, a mother and a grandmother. In her spare time, she writes and directs plays.