From My Bookshelf: The Curse of Gurs, by Werner L. Frank

by Erika Dreifus on
17

Last weekend, I journeyed to Columbus, Ohio, for a family Bat Mitzvah. There, I had the pleasure of spending time with Werner Frank, whose astounding genealogical research includes some of my own family history (on my dad’s side).

Werner, who emigrated from Germany as a child in 1937, has recently published a book focusing on a specific strand of this research: the story of the October 1940 deportation of Jews from the Baden region of Germany to Gurs, an internment camp in France. From Gurs, many of these Jews were eventually deported to Auschwitz. This helps explain the book’s full title: The Curse of Gurs: Way Station to Auschwitz.

The story is particularly painful because so many of Werner’s relatives were among these Baden Jews (as were some of mine). Moreover, Werner remains acutely aware of his good fortune in having left Baden before 1940 – a realization that I similarly share concerning my grandparents, who were also Baden-born.

I purchased a Kindle copy of Werner’s book while we were in Columbus; Werner was kind enough to then gift me with a print copy. As an historian, I was wowed from the outset by Dr. Michael Berenbaum‘s introduction: (more…)

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
1
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish literary news from around the Web.

  • Lots of great book coverage in The Forward this week (including, if I may be so immodest as to point it out, my review of a new English translation of Hans Keilson’s first novel).
  • Superb essay by Etgar Keret (translated by Sondra Silverston) on Keret’s “new house in the old country.”
  • Michael Lowenthal has a new novel out, and he talks about it in a wide-ranging interview for The Rumpus that touches on “American politics, gay parenting, and Jewish literature.”
  • Because my early childhood summers were spent at Brighton Beach; because my life, too, is so much about passing stories along; because I, too, treasure moments spent in the company of my mother and my niece–for all of these reasons I loved Jami Attenberg’s post for The Prosen People. (See also Ron Charles’s enthusiastic review of Attenberg’s new novel.)
  • Finally, The Wall Street Journal ran a nice piece this week spotlighting The Blue Card, the organization to which I am donating portions of the profits from sales of my story collection, Quiet Americans.

    • Shabbat shalom.

    Next Year in Amherst: A Bread Loaf for Jewish Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    3

    Oh, if I were some years younger! What an incredible-sounding program is in the works:

    Tent: Creative Writing, Amherst, MA
    A week-long seminar in creative writing and literature at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA, June 2–9, 2013. Modeled on the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, this program will be geared toward aspiring and practicing writers. You’ll participate in creative writing workshops with and attend readings given by visiting faculty, including Eileen Pollack, the former director of the University of Michigan MFA program and winner of the 2008 Edward Lewis Wallant Award. In morning sessions, participants will read classics of modern Jewish literature, from Sholem Aleichem to Grace Paley, with literary scholar Josh Lambert (UMass Amherst), and discuss the roles played by Jews in the creation of literary modernism and postmodernism. You’ll also have opportunities to write in a pastoral setting, meet a visiting agent or editor or two, and visit a writer’s home.

    Apply by January 13, 2013. (“Who can apply? North American Jews between the ages of 20 and 30, creative people curious about the connections between Jewishness and modern culture.”)

    Best of all: This is one of THREE free programs.

    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 literary news from around the Web.

  • Let’s start with a stupendous-looking opportunity from the Posen Foundation: “The Posen Foundation is proud to announce a unique international fellowship for junior scholars and emerging fiction writers. Each member of the Posen Society of Fellows receives a two-year, $40,000 award, as well as a special opportunity to collaborate with peers and learn from seasoned scholars and writers.” Eligibility: “Eligible scholars should be completing a doctoral dissertation on a topic related to modern Jewish history of culture. Eligible fiction writers should be working on a Jewish-themed novel or short story collection, and should not yet have published their first book.” Application deadline is January 15, 2013, and there’s no application fee. (Thanks to @NaomiDanis for the tip about this amazing program.)
  • Another new opportunity for writers: “Jewish Currents magazine announces its the first annual DORA and ALEXANDER RAYNES POETRY PRIZE for poems on the theme of ‘The American Dream.'” There *is* an entry fee for this competition ($18). Prizes include a cash award of $1,000 to the first-prize winner and $180 to each of two runners-up. “The top 36 poems will be published as a chapbook by Blue Thread, an imprint of Jewish Currents, in the summer of 2013. All submissions will be considered for publication in Jewish Currents. Submission deadline is January 15, 2013. NB: This competition will be judged by Gerald Stern.
  • This week brought us the latest Jewish Book Carnival, ably hosted by the Jewish Book Council’s “ProsenPeople” blog.
  • In a new essay, author Jon Papernick explores the meaning of the tattoo on his arm, in his view and in others’.
  • And in case you missed it, over on my other blog I’ve written about a book that I had the privilege of reading before it was published this month: Susan Kushner Resnick’s You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me About Living, Dying, Loving, Fighting, and Swearing in Yiddish.

    • Shabbat shalom.

    From My Bookshelf: Famous Drownings in Literary History, by Kevin Haworth

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Okay, Kevin Haworth’s latest book, an essay collection, isn’t on my physical bookshelf. But it is among my recent Kindle purchases. And I recommend it.

    I recommend it not only because, in the years since I interviewed him about his prize-winning novel, Kevin has become a friend and valued colleague in the arena of Jewish literary culture (even if we don’t always agree). I recommend it because Kevin is a talented writer whose nonfiction is at least as compelling as his fiction; because his is a voice worth knowing; and because his take on elements of Jewish identity in our time–whether he writes about the circumcision of his son, the culture of the Catskills, or what it’s like to leave Ben Gurion Airport just after the Israeli victims’ bodies have returned there from a terrorist attack in Bulgaria–should reach a wide audience.

    If you’d like a taste of the previously published essays that featured in this collection, may I recommend the one titled “The News from Bulgaria”? I suspect strongly that after you read it, you’ll want to learn more about Kevin and his book.