The Color of Love

Praise for Marra B. Gad's The Color of Love: Winner of the 2020 Midwest Book Award in Autobiography/Memoir presented by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association In The Color of Love, Gad tells her story in straightforward, unadorned prose. . . . The reader is left to marvel at Gad's magnanimity. In the face of a lifetime of racially motivated aggression, she consistently chooses love. -Jerusalem Post This beautiful memoir will stay with readers long after the last page is turned. -The Reporter Offers a Jewish mode of love. . . Institutions have much to learn from reading The Color of Love. -Jewschool.com An easy narrative on a complicated experience. It is a deeply personal story through which the author has shared a perspective that is seldom told. -Jewish Book Council In beautiful, fearless prose, Gad tells a story...that is alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming. -JUF News Gad's message about resisting hate is solid. . . . [An] honest memoir about looking beyond hate to find some semblance of peace on the other side. -Kirkus Reviews The Color of Love provides a much needed voice to this space in society today. But maybe even more than this, Marra's story serves as a reminder, a guide for all of us, from all backgrounds, to choose love. Always. -Glassworks Marra's journey to unconditional love, forgiveness, and compassion in the face of hate and rejection is nothing short of miraculous. -Tina Alexis Allen, author of Hiding Out Marra B. Gad's The Color of Love is a timely and touching memoir of a biracial girl adopted by a Jewish family. It is a story of her 'awakening' to the inherent pressures of being black and female in a white world, pressures that are compounded by being adopted and raised in a white Jewish culture. Her pursuit to live a life of love in a world of racial, religious, and anti-feminist hate and bigotry was a continuous battle toward finding her soul. For a good life-affirming read, I highly recommend The Color of Love. -Ron Stallworth, New York Times-bestselling author of Black Klansman An astonishing and important story, memorably told, with lessons that reach across race, religion, and culture. -David Wolpe, Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and author of David: The Divided Heart Marra B. Gad's is a compelling story, beautifully and authentically written, about her life as a mixed-race Jewish girl adopted by a white Chicago family in the '70s. The compassion, patience, and caring required of anyone in Marra's position is exquisitely demonstrated in this book: it has a lot to teach us. -Jane Wolf Frances, social worker, psychologist, and author of Parenting Our Parents: Transforming the Challenge into a Journey of Love The Color of Love by Marra B. Gad is a book I wish had existed when I was a young Iraqi immigrant in Kentucky trying to make sense of my own 'otherness.' But whereas I spent my youth working to correctly pronounce my r's so I sounded American or being called Mexican because Iraq was not yet a household word, Gad was confronting flat-out racism from her own relatives. Her unflinching account of these inconceivable experiences is balanced with compassion and an empathy for those who judge her. And that makes her a total badass. -Ayser Salman, author of The Wrong End of the Table With humor, tears, and most of all, searing honesty, Marra Gad takes us inside her world, the world of a mixed-race Jew who knows both a family's boundless devotion and the daily indignities-and worse-of those who cannot see past their prejudice. Faced with the ultimate dilemma, she draws on love, the force that single-handedly carried her through the peaks and valleys of a challenging yet full and happy life. Her story of choosing grace and generosity in the most unimaginable moments holds lessons for us all. -Daniel Shapiro, former ambassador of the United States to Israel This is not a story you've heard before. I was blown away by how engrossed I became in The Color of Love and was compelled to find out what happens next to the book's heroine and author in this true story. Gad's fresh voice manages to bring the reader into her heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, and often comedic journey, resulting in a memorable page-turner that you will not want to end. -Rosa Blasi, actress and author of Jock Itch The Color of Love is a spectacular addition to the canon of great Jewish literature. It is timely, confronting urgent questions of racism within the Jewish community, but it is also a timeless parable of hope, love, and the possibility of transformation. This book will challenge all of us to confront our biases and assumptions; it will educate, enliven, and inspire; but most of all, like all great storytelling, it is one book you just can't put down. -Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism