Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links

The words "Jewish Lit Links" are printed over what appears to be a portion of a Torah scroll.
Every Friday, the My Machberet blog presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • The Jewish Week‘s spring books preview is out, and it’s filled with tbr potential.
  • In an essay on the Jewish Review of Books website, Allan Arkush writes about an older book: Abram Sachar’s The Redemption of the Unwanted: From the Liberation of the Death Camps to the Founding of Israel: “Most people in the United States, I’m afraid, if they know anything at all about how the State of Israel came into being, believe that after World War II the nations of the world awarded it to the Jewish people as a compensation for what they had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. There’s a grain of truth in this, but only a grain. Between 1945 and 1949, the Zionists had to do a tremendous number of things on their own in order to obtain a state. They engaged in a vast amount of worldwide politicking, organized illegal immigration to Palestine, combatted the British administration in Palestine in order both to earn the world’s sympathy and to force the British government’s hand. Had the Zionists not done all of this, there would have been no decision at the United Nations to partition Palestine and create a Jewish state. And had the Jews of Palestine then sat on their hands and waited for the UN to implement its decision, that state would never have come into being. They had to fight, on their own, a war of independence against the Arabs of Palestine as well as all of the surrounding nations. Abram Sachar was by no means the first or the last to explain all of this, but he did a singularly good job of it.”
  • Ahead of the Oscars, The Jerusalem Post‘s Amy Spiro profiles “the rabbi who votes for the Academy Awards” (he’s also a two-time Oscar winner).
  • The latest Jewish Book Carnival—aggregating news, reviews, and interviews from Jewish-book bloggers—is now available over on Gila Green’s website.
  • And the next Jewish Book Carnival will be hosted right here on My Machberet. If you (as an individual blogger or on behalf of a publication/organization’s blog or website) are interested in participating, please read the guidelines over on the Carnival HQ. Thank you!
  • Shabbat shalom.