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.”

Pulsing within him was a cacaphony of tongues: the German of his parents, the Yiddish of his grandparents, the Ukrainian of the family’s domestic help, the Ruthenian and Romanian of the locals he’d known as a child, the Russian of the Red Army, the Hebrew of his new nation.

Source: William Giraldi, “Grasping for Words, Grappling with the Past: The Long Journey of Israeli Novelist Aharon Appelfeld,” for The New Republic.

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.

  • Stunning piece by Rachel Kadish on teaching creative nonfiction in Israel.
  • Terrific work by William Giraldi on “the long journey of Aharon Appelfeld.”
  • The Internet has been abuzz with the news that Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent will be made into a miniseries.
  • ICYMI: The May Jewish Book Carnival posted yesterday. Plenty of goodies there for you.
  • Also: some recent poems of mine (and a poem for/about me, too!).

    • Shabbat shalom.

    Words of the Week: Shlomo Avineri

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    “It is also true that what is called the Nakba is the result of a political decision by the Palestinian leadership and the Arab states to reject the United Nations partition resolution, to try to prevent its implementation by force and to attack the Jewish community in the Land of Israel before and after the state’s establishment.”

    Source: Shlomo Avineri, “The Nakba According to Haaretz,” in (to its credit) Haaretz.

    Jewish Book Carnival, May 2014 Edition

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    My Machberet is proud to serve as May 2014 host for the Jewish Book Carnival, a monthly event where those who cover Jewish books online “can meet, read, and comment on each others’ posts.” The posts are hosted on a participant’s site on the 15th of each month.”

    Herewith, the May 2014 Jewish Book Carnival.

    • My own contribution from My Machberet is a Q&A with Nora Gold regarding her new novel Fields of Exile, which focuses on anti-Israelism in academe.
    • The newest episode of The Book of Life podcast, hosted by librarian Heidi Estrin, features an interview with Karen Propp, who won the 2013 Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award for her work-in-progress Freestyle, based on the true story of champion swimmer Judith Deutsch and the Viennese Hakoah swim team of the 1930s
    • Rebecca Klempner’s blog, Between My Ears and Out of My Mouth, offers a Q&A with Batya Ruddell, whom Rebecca describes as one of the foremost writers in the Hareidi world today, [whose] work is beloved both by readers and other writers.
    • Two items from the Life is Like a Library blog: a review of Donna Jo Napoli’s Storm, narrated by a stowaway on Noah’s Ark, and a report from the Jerusalem Writers’ Seminar, where blogger KSP met favorite authors Yaffa Ganz, Tamar Ansh, and Libi Astaire.
    • Lorri M. Writings & Photography discusses the story of the remarkable Sir Nicholas Winton, especially as depicted in the documentary film Nicky’s Family.
    • On her Reading Rabbi blog, Rabbi Anne Perry explores the presence of Jews and Judaism in work by Pat Conroy. Over on the ReformJudaism.org blog, Rabbi Perry also wrote about two recent books written by Jewish mathematicians: Love and Math by Edward Frenkel, and The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick, by Benoit Mandelbrot.

    Thanks so much to all of the participants. Please visit the posts linked above and share your thoughts/responses.