Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

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

  • A thoughtful review of Nora Gold’s Fields of Exile, which you’ve heard about here before.
  • Interesting call: “For this special issue of Prooftexts on Jewish Literature/World Literature, we seek papers that address Jewish literary multilingualism, translation, and circulation. Essays should combine theoretical and methodological concerns with readings of Jewish-language texts to illustrate the productive intersections of Jewish literature with the discourse on world literature.”
  • On the Lilith blog, Talia Lavin writes “On Mothers, Sisters, Narrative and War.”
  • “The interdisciplinary symposium ‘Global Yiddish Culture, 1938 – 1948’ invites historians, literary scholars, sociologists, cinema and theatre scholars to think about the nature of Yiddish culture that developed during this difficult period in Jewish history.”
  • Finally, I’m sad to say that this poem of mine, “Questions for the Critics,” is once again relevant.

    • Shabbat shalom.

    Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress

    by Erika Dreifus on
    3

    Well, what can I tell you? Since last week, I’ve indeed continued to submit my literary humor piece (and I’ve continued to have it rejected!). And I’ve completed a full draft of that essay-review I mentioned. So, there’s been some progress.

    But probably the most meaningful “event” of the week has been the calculation and donation of my quarterly contribution to The Blue Card. As I’ve explained, each calendar quarter since my story collection was released, I’ve given money to The Blue Card based on the quarter’s book sales.

    Admittedly, this quarter was a lean one for book sales. But thankfully, some readers are still discovering and purchasing the book. So long as that continues, the contributions will, too.

    Words of the Week: David Horovitz

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    “It becomes wearying, conflict after conflict, but it is necessary, nonetheless, to urge policy-makers and opinion-shapers overseas to make just a modicum of effort, to look just a little closer, to exercise just a smidgen of intellectual honesty. And to recognize the bottom line: If there was no rocket fire from this non-disputed enclave, there would be no Israeli response, and nobody would be dying.”

    Source: David Horovitz, “Why Are We Fighting with Gaza, Again?” – a must-read piece in The Times of Israel

    Sunday Sentence

    by Erika Dreifus on
    3

     

    In which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

    “It is terrible to carry a doomed child beneath your heart.”

    Source: Kate Maloy, “A Normal Woman,” in Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, & Abortion, edited by Karen E. Bender & Nina de Gramont.