Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Every Friday, My Machberet presents a set of Jewish Literary Links to close out the week.

  • A hearty Mazal Tov to Elie Wiesel, who has been named the winner of the 2012 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.
  • LABA: House of Study, “a non-religious beit midrash for culture-makers located at the 14th Street Y in New York City,” is looking for fellows for the 2012-13 year. Fellows may be “culture-makers from any creative field. Previous fellows have included dancers, actors, visual artists, theater directors, musicians and writers, though we are not limited to these categories.” The theme for the upcoming year is “EAT.” Applications are due by July 30, 2012, and there is no fee to apply.
  • The Yiddish Book Center (Amherst, Mass.) “seeks a Communications & Visitor Services Assistant to supervise docents, coordinate group tours, assist with administration of public programs, maintain social media presence, and assist with outreach.”
  • “For a special issue of Studies in American Jewish Literature, we seek critical and scholarly essays on Jewish American poetry–Jewish poetry written in America, American poetry written by Jews on matters Jewish, or American poetry written in Jewish languages, including Yiddish, Hebrew, and Ladino.” Deadline: January 1, 2013.
  • And in case you missed the mention on my other blog: I’ve gone back to school. Back to Hebrew school, that is.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    From My Bookshelf: THE INNOCENTS, by Francesca Segal

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Just a couple of days ago I mentioned that I’ve been reading The Innocents, the debut novel by Francesca Segal. As I noted, Segal’s book updates Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and transplants it to a tight-knit Jewish community in contemporary London.

    I picked up a complimentary pre-publication copy (and had it signed by the author) at last month’s Book Expo America here in New York City. I also had the good fortune to catch one of Segal’s tweets about a reading she was giving at a bookstore in my neighborhood that same week, so I had the chance to hear the book’s opening section read aloud with a suitably British accent.

    But it took a few weeks until I managed to start reading the book myself. Once I began, it was tough to put the book down. I’m not at all certain that all other readers will be as captivated by both elements of the book–the adaptation of the Wharton tale and the depiction of a Jewish community and its customs–as I was. But they sure captivated me.

    I’ll leave you with a sampling of brief excerpts–passages that I found so resonant that they inspired me to dog-ear their respective pages and return to think consider them more intensively. (more…)

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday, My Machberet presents a set of Jewish Literary Links to close out the week.

  • First up: I’m currently reading Francesca Segal’s The Innocents, a novel that updates Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and transplants it to Jewish London. You still have time to read a copy yourself before the Jewish Book Council’s Twitter chat with the author, which is slated for July 16.
  • Also looking just a bit ahead: If you’re in New York, you may want to catch “Four Jewish Guys: Poetry and Performance,” scheduled for July 19 and featuring Jake Marmer, Jay Michaelson, Yehoshua November, and Philip Terman.
  • Not easy to read, but noteworthy nonetheless: “The American Girl in the Bunker,” a first-person account of a volunteer from New York serving in an IDF paratrooper unit–and dealing with rockets from Gaza.
  • Very different material, but also worth your time: Deborah Eisenberg’s new short story, “Cross Off and Move On.”
  • And over on Bagels and Books, there’s a nice recap of this spring’s Writers’ Festival in Jerusalem.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    3
    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

    Happy to share some pre-Shabbat literary links.

  • If you’re in the NYC area and looking for a book group to join, you may want to consider this one, from the Center for Jewish History: a book club that’s free and open to the public. The club will kick off on July 16 with a discussion of Ellen Ullman’s By Blood. More info here.
  • MyJewishLearning.com is hiring an Editor. (This job is based in New York.)
  • You still have a few days to enter a giveaway and win a copy of Ann Koffsky’s book for children, Noah’s Swim-a-Thon.
  • The ever-instructive Adam Kirsch, on “John Updike’s Jewish Novels.”
  • Finally, even if you don’t click through and read anything else I’m pointing you to, please read Judy Bolton-Fasman’s simply superb–and beautifully written–“Letter to Alice Walker.”

    • Shabbat shalom.

    From My Bookshelf: Fiction by Etgar Keret

    by Erika Dreifus on
    5

    Confession: I frequently read, admire, and link to Israeli author Etgar Keret’s nonfiction/essays (particularly his columns for Tablet), but I haven’t always been as comfortable with Keret’s fiction. I read The Nimrod Flipout when its U.S. publisher sent me a review copy of the English translation several years back (2006), and although I understood what the fuss was about–Keret is one prodigiously talented, not to mention prolific writer–my own reading tastes just don’t hunger for the sheer strangeness–call it experimentalism, fabulism, magical realism, whatever–that seemed to characterize the collection.

    Moreover, back then–around the time of the Second Lebanon War–my nascent interest in attempting to understand contemporary Israel through its literature was intensifying. There was so much about Israel that I, a Diaspora Jew, needed to learn (this remains all too true six years later). Keret’s fables and flash fictions didn’t seem to engage with the seriousness of what the Israelis call hamatzav— “the situation,” namely, the pervasive conflict that suffuses life in their country. It occurred to me only hazily (if at all) that this was a selfish indulgence of my Diaspora self; living within “the situation,” Keret could certainly be excused from spending still more time with it in his fiction.

    But last week, a review-essay on The Millions caught my eye. Titled “The Maturation of Etgar Keret” and written by Bezalel Stern, it captivated me. And it sent me hurrying to add two new volumes to my bookshelf: Suddenly, A Knock on the Door (Keret’s latest book to be released in English, with translations by Nathan Englander, Miriam Shlesinger, and Sondra Silverston) and Four Stories, a slim collection I’ll address in greater detail shortly. (more…)