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 dispatch from magazine-publishing: “Condé Nast’s high-profile head of diversity quietly stepped down in June amid bitter internal tensions over alleged antisemitism and divisive arguments about the war in Gaza. The moves earlier this year at the magazine giant, which publishes the New Yorker, Vogue, Wired, GQ, and Vanity Fair, among others, went nearly unnoticed outside its 1 World Trade Center headquarters. But they closely mirror the more public flare-ups this year in US media, most recently at CBS, and were an explicit example of the uncomfortable underlying tensions along generational, ideological, and sometimes ethnic lines.” By Max Tani for Semafor.
• There’s lots of excellent content in the latest issue from Jewish Review of Books. (Be forewarned: non-subscribers have limited access before the paywall kicks in, so click further with caution!) I’m especially glad to find Michael Walzer’s review of Adam Kirsch’s On Settler Colonialism (a book I continue to recommend; it’s been under-appreciated to date, in my view, especially outside the Jewish press). And Jack Omer-Jackaman’s essay on T.S. Eliot’s antisemitism (and the Anglo-Jewish writer who called him out on it) landed as an especially timely read for me, too.
• On a related note: Unholy podcast co-hosts Jonathan Freedland and Yonit Levi recently spoke with “legend of the theatre” Sir Nicholas Hytner, who “talks about his latest sell-out production, Giant, which thanks to events in the Middle East has become unexpectedly timely.” (Hint: Roald Dahl is involved.)
• From Erica Lyons, newly-anointed kidlit editor for Judith magazine: “While I love all the books that I have lined up for Judith kidlit features, one had to be first. This is no ordinary first. It follows October 7 and Yom Kippur. Simchat Torah is just a week and a half away. Last night, at the time of writing this, 67 people were injured and 4 killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on the Binyamina area of Northern Israel. It was no small task to choose a children’s book than can speak to this moment, but then I found The Heroes of October 7th: Heroic Stories for Children, edited by Hadassa Ben-Ari, published by Yedioth Books (September 17, 2024).
• Despite the Sukkot holiday, I’m still feeling pretty somber these days (and I know that in that, I’m not alone). But I found my spirits considerably lifted as I read though Behrman House’s kidlit-focused “celebration of new books from Israel-based authors.”

As usual, updates have continued for “After October 7: Readings, Recordings, and More”  I’ve also updated the “Writers, Beware” document to incorporate last week’s “On #AWP25, Zionism, and Israel”—which itself has occasioned an update based on a message I received from AWP’s Conference Director. Check the post for details.

Wishing everyone a Chag Sukkot Sameach, and Shabbat Shalom.