Jewish Literary Links
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.
- “Barbara, Detroit, 1966” is a stunner of a flash fiction piece by Peter Orner that appeared last week on The New Yorker‘s site. (After you’ve read it, you may want to find out more about the incident it describes, as I did, thanks to JTA’s archive.)
- On shelves now: a new biography and a new novel focused on Ethel Rosenberg. Here’s Howard Freedman’s critical take, and here’s Ellen Meeropol’s more personal one.
- The August Jewish Book Carnival has gone live, hosted for this month by Life Is Like a Library. Check it out—and if you are a blogger/editor/reviewer with something to share for the September iteration (authors, this is NOT for self-promo!) please check the instructions over on the Association of Jewish Libraries website.
- From Allan Arkush/Jewish Review of Books: an important addition to the coverage of Joshua Cohen’s novel The Netanyahus.
- And icymi: I’ve shared a slew of soon-to-be released books of Jewish interest (kidlit! a graphic novel! lots of nonfiction!).
Shabbat shalom.
Dear Erika,
I strongly urge and beg you to remove the link to the New Yorker flash fiction piece.
Not everything that mentions Jews is worthy of note in a Jewish-oriented blog, and this story is exceedingly problematic for anyone who cares about Jews and Jewish life — anywhere, anytime.
A sympathetic literary portrayal of radical violence by a Jew against another Jew, in a Jewish communal setting, should not be acceptable to Jewish readers of any stripe. The fact that the author is sending up the hypocrisy and ponderous self-importance that are sometimes found in such settings does not excuse the free pass he gives to murder! I might have my own criticism of what goes on in “temples” — but murder! What have we come to? This is okay because it’s in the New Yorker? Because the author is “acclaimed”?
Coming against a background of rising antisemitism in the “enlightened” West, the inclusion of this item in your Jewish-interest roundup is particularly troubling. The only possible excuse for publicizing it would be as a warning to your Jewish and non-Jewish readers about the disintegration of Western cultural norms.
I appreciate your taking the time to comment, Julie, although I disagree with your interpretation of the story, and I have no plans to remove the link.
Thanks for sharing the link to Peter Orner’s piece. That day is seared in the collective and private memories of all Jewish Detroiters of that era.
I would imagine so, Judy. It was hard for me to realize that I’d never known about it before reading Orner’s story.