Words of the Week: Antoine de Saint-Exupery

by Erika Dreifus on
3

Saint-Exupery-Lettre-a-un-otage
Toi si Français, je te sens deux fois en péril de mort, parce que Français, et parce que juif.

(My attempt at a translation: You who are so French, I sense that you are doubly in mortal danger, because you are a Frenchman, and because you are a Jew.)

Source: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Lettre à un otage (“Letter to a Hostage”), first published in 1943. (My copy lists a 1944 copyright.)

There’s more about this text, and Saint-Exupéry’s friendship with Léon Werth, the titular though never-named hostage, in Stacy Schiff’s Saint-Exupéry biography. (Werth is the same friend to whom Saint-Exupéry dedicated Le Petit Prince.) I am currently awaiting the arrival of one of Werth‘s works about the wartime period, 33 Jours.

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
2

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • In “Love Me, Love My Book,” The Jewish Week‘s Editor/Publisher, Gary Rosenblatt, reports on his experience as participant and observer in the latest Jewish Book Council “Meet the Author” event.
  • A hearty mazal tov to the winners of the latest Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards (including my former poetry teacher, Matthew Lippman). Bonus: We can read the winning poems online.
  • A contemporary opera I don’t think I’ll be going to see.
  • In time for Father’s Day: Tablet and Marjorie Ingall present “The 13 Worst Jewish Fathers in Literature.”
  • And over on The Whole Megillah, you’ll find an interview with Michelle Caplan, Editor-in-Chief of Fig Tree Books. (You’ve seen FTB mentioned here on My Machberet before, but as a reminder, it’s “a new literary publishing house founded by Fredric Price, a successful entrepreneur in the orphan drug industry who wants to publish high quality fiction about the American Jewish experience (AJE).”)

    • Shabbat shalom.

    Facebooking the Association of Jewish Libraries Conference

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    (Received yesterday via email and re-printed with permission.)

    The 49th Annual Association of Jewish Libraries Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada starts in a week and a half! I am looking forward to seeing many of you there, but I hope that those who can’t join us in person will keep an eye on Facebook for the duration of the conference (June 22-25). We’ll be posting photos and status updates live from Vegas to www.facebook.com/jewishlibraries.

    If you are not a Facebook user, don’t worry! You don’t have to sign up or log in to view AJL’s Facebook page! Just go to www.facebook.com/jewishlibraries and you’ll see everything we post!

    If you ARE a Facebook user, please click Like on AJL’s page if you haven’t already. This will allow you to receive our posts in your news feed, and it will mean you can post comments on our photos and status updates. We would LOVE to hear from you, so please do add your “likes” and comments once we start posting from the conference!

    To those who will be in Las Vegas – I’d be happy to have additional volunteers help Facebook the conference. If you’re interested, send a friend request to Heidi Rabinowitz Estrin (if we’re not FB friends already) and message me to let me know you’d like to be part of the fun!

    See you all soon in Vegas and on Facebook!

    Heidi Rabinowitz Estrin
    President
    Association of Jewish Libraries
    www.facebook.com/heidiestrin

    Words of the Week: Daniel Handler on I.B. Singer

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Isaac Bashevis Singer
    Isaac Bashevis Singer

    “Though Singer was an American writer, with a couple of National Book Awards to prove it, that doesn’t feel like the right nationality to put down on the Nobel list. Nor does Polish, which matches his birthplace. Jew is the word we’re looking for here. He’s not the first Jew to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he’s the first one to win it for writing in Yiddish, and we’re not going to see another one.”

    Source: Daniel Handler, “What the Swedes Read,” a recurring column in The Believer. The column on Singer appeared in the May 2014 issue, which I had the delight of thumbing through over the weekend.

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

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

  • “A decade after its publication, Canadian author David Bezmozgis is turning his debut short story collection, ‘Natasha and Other Stories,’ into a film.”
  • The Well Versed blog chimes in with a dispatch from the Fourth International Writers Festival in Jerusalem.
  • Fathom interviews Philip Mendes regarding his new book, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance.
  • Read Hebrew? You may want to look into Granta Israel. Beth Kissileff has the background.
  • On my own weekend reading agenda: Saul Bellow’s “A Silver Dish,” now available on NewYorker.com.

    • Shabbat shalom.