Apeirogon, Colum McCann. On Sept. 4, 1997, 13-year-old Smadar Elhanan — dressed in a Blondie T-shirt, her hair cut short, her Walkman playing Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2U” — was walking down Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem when three young Palestinian men detonated suicide belts, killing themselves, Smadar, and four others. A decade later, and less than three miles away, 10 year-old Abir Aramin, wearing her school uniform and holding a candy bracelet she’d just bought, was shot in the back of the head by an 18-year- old Israeli soldier as his jeep sped around a corner. She died two days later at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, the same hospital where Smadar was born.

These real-life events form the seed of “Apeirogon,” Colum McCann’s powerful and prismatic new novel. Rabbi Donna Kirschbaum will lead the discussion.