Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links

Image description: pages of Hebrew text.

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

  • Somehow, I always feel guilty for admitting that I haven’t yet read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. This week, I read an essay by Shira Small, a JWA Rising Voices Fellow, which reduces that feeling considerably.
  • A book that I do intend to read (soon, I hope!) is IDF veteran Izzy Ezagui’s Disarmed: Unconventional Lessons from the World’s Only One-Armed Special Forces Sharpshooter. Ezagui caught my attention with this essay for The Times of Israel; he retained it with Renee Ghert-Zand’s profile for the same.
  • Another terrific podcast episode featuring Leon Wiener Dow, author of The Going: A Meditation on Jewish Lawthis time with Michelle W. Malkin for “It’s Who You Know!”.
  • I am still discovering coverage of #JewLit-related sessions at the latest conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). This week connected me with Anca Szilágyi’s notes on a “Difficult History” fiction panel. I’m not sure that I agree with everything that was apparently stated there, or that I wouldn’t have pushed back on some ideas had I been present. (How Jewish!) But that doesn’t diminish my appreciation for the panel and for this summary of it.
  • Opportunity alert: “Jewish Book Council seeks an Editorial Fellow for the summer of 2018. This unique opportunity will allow a graduate student or emerging editor or writer to gain editorial experience, learn about the many facets of a small nonprofit, and immerse her- or himself in the New York literary world. The Editorial Fellow will work a minimum of three full days a week for a three-month period at our office in midtown Manhattan, and will receive a stipend.” Apply by midnight on March 25.
  • Shabbat shalom, chaverim!

    2 thoughts on “Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links

    1. Mazal HaMidbar says:

      I tried reading “Everything is Illuminated” years ago and, in something I rarely do (but do more often now than decades ago) I abandoned it. It was just too confusing for me, even though I am a longtime fan of literary fiction. I may try it again in the future.

      1. Erika Dreifus says:

        I started it, too. But I didn’t get very far.

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