Words of the Week

“God, Master of the Universe, please make this world safe for our people this year. Next year may we be in Jerusalem, but this year please take care of the Jews in our holy city and in so many other cities: in Marseilles and Copenhagen, in Argentina and Buenos Aires, Kansas and Seattle, Paris and Tunis, Sderot and Toulouse, Brussels and Donetsk. This Passover evening is a ‘night of vigilance’ [Exodus 12:42]. Please watch over us with divine care and compassion. Protect our sacred tombstones and graves from desecration. Protect our synagogues across the globe from Swastikas and shattering glass. Protect our innocent children on their day school playgrounds and our Jewish communal workers in embassies and community centers. Pour out Your wrath against the world’s injustices so that one day, You can pour out Your love. Ani Ma’amin — I believe that day will come. It is not here yet. Together, we will await that day. We will not wait passively. We will partner with you in a covenant to protect our people and remove them from harm’s way. And we will re-affirm in word and deed our daily commitment to justice, goodness and kindness.”

From Dr. Erica Brown’s “Pour Out Your Love?” in The Jewish Week

Pre-Shabbat (and Pre-Pesach) Jewish Lit Links

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

Every Friday My Machberet presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • Truly one of the most exciting news items that crossed my screen this week: Kevin Haworth’s announcement regarding his contract to write a book on Israeli comics artist Rutu Modan.
  • The week also brought a new issue of JewishFiction.Net, featuring work by Isaac Babel, Thane Rosenbaum, Rebecca Klempner, and many others.
  • Now that I’ve finished reading one Jewishly-inflected poetry collection (Lesléa Newman’s I Carry My Mother), it’s time to begin another one: Jehanne Dubrow’s The Arranged Marriage, reviewed this week by Judy Bolton-Fasman for The Forward‘s “The Sisterhood” blog.
  • Over on the Fig Tree Books website, Dinah Fay has contributed a new discussion of Amy Bloom’s Away.
  • “TC Jewfolk is seeking a highly motivated self-starter with experience and passion for blogging, managing writers, and community journalism to be the Editor for TC Jewfolk. This role is a paid, part-time position, with great flexibility. The primary office for this position is located at the Sabes JCC in St. Louis Park, MN.
  • Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Pesach Sameach!

    From My Bookshelf: Lesléa Newman’s I CARRY MY MOTHER

    Earlier this year, I shared one line from a poem by Lesléa Newman (“Sitting Shiva,” which I’d discovered thanks to Keshet/MyJewishLearning.com) as a “Sunday Sentence” on the Practicing Writing blog. Simultaneously, I ordered a copy of the collection in which that poem appears, I Carry My Mother, in which the poet recounts her mother’s dying and her own grief. But it took me until this week to sit down and actually read the book.

    It is a searing collection. I dare anyone to read it without shedding tears at least once. (Maybe I suspected that would be the case, and maybe I needed some time to steel myself before engaging with the full collection.)

    It is also a remarkably instructive volume for anyone interested in the practice of poetry. And since April is National Poetry Month, it seems appropriate to comment on this quality. (more…)

    Pre-Shabbat Jewish Lit Links

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

    Every Friday My Machberet presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • On the Reform Judaism blog: another nice review of Anita Diamant’s The Boston Girl that hits a lot of notes I’ve been thinking about re: this novel, too.
  • Another review with which I concur: Gloria Kestenbaum’s take on Gina Nahai’s The Luminous Heart of Jonah S., which Kestenbaum calls “[b]y turns hilariously funny and painfully sad.”
  • In time for Passover: Jewish kidlit recommendations from Lisa Silverman (Jewish Journal) and Marjorie Ingall (Tablet).
  • Via Shelf Awareness: a nifty one-stop-“shop”/newsletter for learning all about Fig Tree Books (my employer!) and the novels of American Jewish experience it is publishing this spring.
  • And as we prepare for the final episodes of Mad Men, The Forward’s Anne Cohen talks with Matthew Weiner by phone “to ask him what comes next, what he kept from the set, and really, what’s the deal with all the Jews?” on the show.
  • Shabbat shalom!

    Pre-Hiatus Jewish Lit Links

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday, My Machberet presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety. Yes, I know it’s not Friday. But I won’t be able to post then, as I’ll be on a brief “off-the-grid” hiatus. So here are the links, just a bit early. See you again next week!

  • Last Thursday I attended the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) awards ceremony. I was happy to see that The Essential Ellen Willis won in the Criticism category. I read that book after I discovered “Is There Still a Jewish Question? Why I’m an Anti-Anti-Zionist,” a truly “essential” essay. (Also taking top honors at the NBCC ceremony: Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? – one of my favorite reads of 2014.)
  • The March Jewish Book Carnival was posted on Sunday. Always worth reading.
  • UK-based Jewish Quarterly is hiring paid interns in journalism and in social media.
  • Also worthwhile: a cyber-roundtable with Jewish-fiction editors Yona Zeldis McDonough, Nora Gold, and Michelle Caplan (my colleague!), hosted by Barbara Krasner.
  • On the Fig Tree Books website, Rebekah Bergman reviews Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s Leaving Brooklyn.
  • And speaking of Fig Tree Books–last, but definitely not least: the March newsletter, with info on three ongoing giveaways of titles of Jewish interest and a whole lot more.
  • Shabbat shalom–and see you next week!