Erika Dreifus

Toward the end of each week, the My Machberet blog presents a collection of links, drawn primarily from the world of Jewish books and writing.

• This week I’ve run across a number of powerful essays/essayistic texts that I’m moved to share: Bari Weiss’s speech at Sunday’s #NoHateNoFear rally in New York; Jarrod Tanny’s “When I Discovered That My Anti-Racist Colleague Is an Anti-Semite”; Aviya Kushner’s “Why We Have to Keep Talking About Monsey”; and Noah Efron’s “Zionist Jews and Anti-Zionist Jews Are In A Stalemate: There’s Something That Can Break It.”
• Speaking of essays: I have a new one up on the TC Jewfolk website, too. “The Un-Stunned” offers some personal reflections on the recent uptick in antisemitism in the United States. (By the way, I sent my essay to TC Jewfolk after catching this call for submissions via Twitter.)
• Several new reviews are up on the Reading Jewish Fiction website. (And while you’re there, you can check out a review that I published there a few months ago, if you missed it back then.)
• Opportunity for writers, from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute: “HBI offers outstanding scholars, writers and artists the opportunity to be in residence at HBI at different points during the year.” The current application round has a deadline of February 17, 2020. Awards confer will “a monthly stipend of $5,000. In addition, participants will receive (shared) office space at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and access to all available Brandeis University resources.”
• And here’s a book project that (as I’ve confirmed with editor Rabbi Menachem Creditor) unfortunately does not pay for accepted work, but will consider reprints of prose/poetry. “The title sums up the goal: ‘Loud, Proud, and Jewish’,” featuring “essays/reflections from various Jewish authors who are cognizant of and engaged with the most recent outbreak of American antisemitism, and are forceful in their response while also remembering the divine image inherent in all people.” Deadline: January 17.

And in case you’ve missed my mention in the latest “Words of the Week” post, I hope that you’ll also take note of this important Book Community Statement of Solidarity Against Antisemitism.

Shabbat shalom.