From My Bookshelf: AFTER ABEL AND OTHER STORIES by Michal Lemberger

by Erika Dreifus on
2

Unknown As per usual, it has been a busy time, and I haven’t been able to read as much as I’d like to. But among the few books that I have managed to finish lately is one that still has me thinking: Michal Lemberger’s After Abel and Other Stories (Prospect Park Books).

I’d been looking forward to this book of short stories for months, ever since I read the piece titled “Lot’s Wife” in Lilith magazine. Shortly thereafter, I enrolled in a Jewish-writing class myself that shared some parallels with Lemberger’s project in its approach.

So what is Lemberger’s project? In a recent post for the Jewish Book Council’s blog, she explained: (more…)

Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

Every Friday My Machberet presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • SO MUCH has been happening over at Fig Tree Books (my employer). Check out our latest newsletter.
  • I was delighted to receive the latest issue of Lilith magazine in the mail this week and especially impressed by Elizabeth Edelglass’s short story within it.
  • This week, Tablet magazine presented original fiction by Maxim Shrayer: “A Genius in the Attic: Secrets of a Cape Cod Dacha.”
  • Love this piece by Ruth Wisse, occasioned by the publication of a new biography of Saul Bellow. (ht Mosaic Magazine)
  • The Jewish Book Council is hiring a program assistant.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    My Niece’s Mitzvah Project

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    If you want to be technical about it, Alexis isn’t my niece–she’s the daughter of one of my three first cousins. But she calls me “Auntie Erika,” and I love her to pieces. Which is why I’m so proud to share the project she has undertaken prior to being called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.

    In her own words:

    Please sign up for my ProjectSave18 group. This is my Mitzvah Project and starting April 1, I will be posting facts about organ and tissue donation daily. I will be doing this throughout the entire month of April, Donate Life month. My grandma Alexis was in need of a heart and kidney transplant and partly because of this she passed away. Please help me spread the word by this cause by joining my group and sharing with all of your Facebook friends.

    (Interestingly—or maybe it’s not so interesting, since it IS Donate Life month—an item from MyJewishLearning.com crossed one of my social-media accounts a few days ago on the subject of “misgivings and misconceptions” re: organ donation.) (more…)

    Words of the Week

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    “What made me so distressed was not that SOCC had asked me about divestment, but that they had thought my Jewishness might make me a poor Senator. There are Jews who support divestment, there are Jews who do not take a position and there are Jews who are against divestment. My involvement in Hillel, my praying in synagogue, my love of the Hebrew language, my study of Talmud, my celebration of Rosh Hashanah and Hannukah and Purim and Passover have nothing to do with divestment.”

    –Molly Horwitz, “Dear Stanford: Don’t Quiz Me on BDS Because I’m Jewish” (Forward)

    Pre-Shabbat Jewish Lit Links

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday My Machberet presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • On Tablet: a thoughtful piece by Marjorie Ingall that pleads for a bit more subject-diversity in Jewish books for children.
  • This month’s Jewish Book Carnival is hosted over on Jodie Books. Check it out.
  • One of the links I discovered in the aforementioned Carnival: Deborah Kalb’s Q&A with Shulem Deen, whose memoir All Who Go Do Not Return I’m seeing mentioned everywhere and I’m looking forward to reading soon.
  • ICYMI: My midweek post on Practicing Writing had some things to say about Yom HaShoah.
  • Fig Tree Books published its second book this week: a re-issue of Meyer Levin’s classic Compulsion. Read Adam Kirsch’s take.

    • Shabbat shalom.