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.

• A (free, online) event on my calendar: the Inaugural National Library of Israel Annual Lecture Series in Memory of [American-Israeli writer and literary translator] Stuart Schoffman. The first lecture will take place on Sunday, November 6. It will be delivered by Leon Botstein, who will speak on “The Perils of Identity: The American in Israel.”
• I’ve been unable to catch the latest Literary Modiin salons, but I’m hoping to tune in to the next one, this Sunday, which will feature authors Martha Anne Toll, Sara Lippmann, and Diana Bletter.
• J. The Jewish News of Northern California is hiring an Editor-in-Chief.
• This week my Holocaust Literature class was assigned a handful of stories from Ida Fink’s collection A Scrap of Time (translated by Madeline Levine and Francine Prose). As I prepared, I revisited this superb 2020 essay by Chris Power: “I Wish More People Would Read … A Scrap of Time by Ida Fink.” I co-sign that sentiment.
• Especially after reading Andrew Silow-Carroll’s take on “The Missed Opportunities of Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt,” I’m not too sad that I haven’t seen the play. (On the other hand, I am desperate for either a streaming or U.S. production of Jonathan Freedland’s Jews. In Their Own Words, which closes in London this Saturday.)

Shabbat Shalom!