A historical novel set in Jerusalem during the 1961 Adolf Eichmann trial
While trying to find her missing uncle, with the Adolf Eichmann trial in the background, Susan Reich explores awakening emotions in herself and gets involved in the political struggles of the moment.
“This compelling, character-driven story will captivate even those with limited knowledge of Jewish history, the Nazis, or Eichmann and teach valuable lessons along the way. An engrossing mystery wrapped in a coming-of-age story and the heart-rending legacy of the Holocaust.” – Kirkus Review
Susan Reich is a 17-year-old American who goes to Israel seeking to solve a family mystery. Susan’s quest takes her to unexpected places where she confronts layers of history that she never knew. While trying to find her missing uncle, with the Adolf Eichmann trial in the background, she explores awakening emotions in herself and gets involved in the struggles of her Israeli and Jewish Moroccan friends.
The seven months that Roslyn Bernstein spent in Jerusalem in 1961, when she listened to the stories of immigrants and survivors and daydreamed about their meanings, was a source of inspiration for The Girl Who Counted Numbers. She has been attentive to historical accuracies of time and place but the story of Susan Reich, her family, and friends is fictional.
The cover’s photograph was chosen as an evocation of just that time and place. This photograph was made about 1960 by an Israeli photographer, Liselotte Grschebina, whose archive is in the collection of The Israel Museum.
RELEASED: 12 October 2022
Roslyn Bernstein has been a storyteller all her life, sometimes working for a true account in the narrow sense as a journalist when it’s reporting or history, and sometimes in a wider, more resonant sense when composing poetry, short stories, or a novel.
As a journalist, she has reported in-depth cultural stories for venues including Guernica, Tablet, Arterritory, and Huffington Post. While reporting on all forms of art and architecture, documentary photography has been a major subject of Bernstein’s writing and teaching since the 1970s. Sixty of her online pieces were reprinted in an anthology, Engaging Art: Essays and Interviews From Around the Globe.
She is the author of a collection of linked fictional tales, Boardwalk Stories, set in a seaside community during the 1950s, and the co-author of a history of SoHo, Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo, which focuses on one building to tell the story of SoHo’s transformation from a manufacturing district to a live-work arts community.
The Girl Who Counted Numbers was inspired by the seven months that Roslyn Bernstein spent in Jerusalem in 1961. She has tried to be attentive to historical details although the story of Susan Reich, her family, and friends is fictional.
