Erika Dreifus

• Coming soon: May is Jewish American Heritage Month. And the heroic Heidi Rabinowitz has assembled an incredible website featuring children’s books to help observe it.
• If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve perhaps already seen me rhapsodize over the discovery, this week, of a new Global Jewish Literary Alliance.
• Watching (or thinking of watching) the new Netflix series Transatlantic? (I’ve just finished streaming it.) As the credits reveal, the series is inspired by Julie Orringer’s novel The Flight Portfolio (who, the credits also reveal, served as an Executive Producer). Be sure to read Shira Li Bartov’s JTA piece about the real history behind the (highly) fictionalized story; check also my review of The Flight Portfolio, which addresses some similar territory.
• Last week I pointed you to my new review (from Moment magazine’s spring issue) of Tova Reich’s forthcoming The House of Love and Prayer and Other Stories. This week, I want to highlight another book-focused piece from that same issue: author Omer Friedlander’s meditations on reading spots in—and books to read from—Israel.
• And on a somber note: “Renowned Israeli author Meir Shalev, whose works melded the power of biblical narratives with the complicated lives of modern Israelis, died Tuesday after struggling with cancer. He was 74.” (Jessica Steinberg for The Times of Israel.)

Shabbat shalom.