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.
- The latest winners and finalists for the National Jewish Book Awards were announced yesterday.
- From Ritualwell: “Survival of the Word: Poetry for International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” a free session to be facilitated by Rachel Neve-Midbar next week.
- I spent some quality reading time last Shabbat with the latest (Winter 2023) issue of Jewish Review of Books (limited free online content for non-subscribers). One review in particular helped me de-prioritize a title that had been on my tbr list.
- ICYMI: The January Jewish Book Carnival went live this week, hosted right here on My Machberet.
- And today happens to be the 12th birthday of Quiet Americans: Stories, published on this day in 2011!
Shabbat shalom.
From reading the Eric Alterman article I deduce he is a member of the ignorant leftie (and I’m a leftie) crowd of anti-Israel folk who parrot what they’ve heard. He thinks he’s thinking, he thinks he knows something but he isn’t and doesn’t. Israel is an imperfect democracy, like ours. And I and others who are left but pro-Israel work as much as we can to improve both democracies. I wonder that Myanmar or Saudi Arabia, two quite tyrannical regimes, never get the same press, attention or scrutiny by the left or anyone in the West that I can tell.
So: It’s complicated. I wouldn’t say that he’s ignorant. In fact, our paths have crossed several times and I thought we had a perfectly fine acquaintanceship—so much so that when I read the review, I was concerned enough to see if he had commented on it publicly. But for reasons I do not know, it seems that he has blocked me on Twitter. I’ve heard him speak about the book a couple of times, and between what I’ve picked up in those instances and from this review (I’ll add that Allan Arkush is a former teacher of mine for whom I have great respect), I’m no longer motivated to make an effort to read this 500+-page book. Plus, yes—I don’t feel that I owe much reading time to people who block me!