From My Bookshelf: The House at Tyneford, by Natasha Solomons

by Erika Dreifus on
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My latest book review has just appeared on The Jewish Journal‘s website. Here’s how it begins:

Natasha Solomons is a British writer whose first novel, published in the United States in 2010 as “Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English,” should have received a wider readership. Inspired by the experience of the author’s grandparents, European Jews who fled Nazism for safety in England, that novel focused largely on the challenges and conflicts of assimilation. In the recently published “The House at Tyneford” (Plume, $15), Solomons returns to the Jewish refugee experience in England in the 1930s.

Read the rest here.

Jewish Theater Residency Opportunity in NYC

by Erika Dreifus on
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This sounds like a terrific opportunity:

LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y and the Jewish Plays Project are seeking five collaborative teams of theater artists for a three-week pilot residency program. Modeled on the Space residency at Mabou Mines (and to some extend ART-NY’s Creative Spaces Grant), the residency is designed to give selected artists time, space and support to create vibrant new work that extends the Jewish conversation through cutting-edge theater forms and techniques….Selected artists will also participate in the revolutionary artists’ Beit Midrash process developed at LABA, learning how ancient texts can inspire and inform their artistry.

There’s a lot to absorb on the website (scroll down) regarding eligibility and the application process, so be forewarned. But there’s NO FEE to apply. Proposals are due by 6 p.m. on March 15. Good luck!

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
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Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
  • Did you miss the Jewish Book Council’s Twitter Book Club chat with Anna Solomon this week? You can read the transcript here. Next up for the club: Nathan Englander (March 27) and Natasha Solomons (April 26).
  • On “Good Letters,” the Image journal blog, poet Rick Chess reflects on listening, psalms, and Night.
  • The latest issue of Hadassah magazine features a profile of author Cynthia Ozick.
  • If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend, you have the opportunity to attend a pretty spectacular-looking BookFest at the JCC of San Francisco. Take a peek at Sunday’s schedule.
  • Some controversy is swirling around Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox.
  • Washington Jewish Week (based in Rockville, Md.) is looking for a Senior Writer.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Words of the Week: Rabbi David Wolpe

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    “My children do not patrol the borders. They do not dismantle unexploded rockets. They do not walk gingerly into cafes, always wondering, always fearful, even in quiet times. There aren’t too many bomb shelters in Westwood. When I express my opinions about Israel’s conduct, which I do, this reality is foremost in my mind. There is a penalty for choosing not to live in Israel: A certain diffidence, a willingness to listen and appreciate the result of a democratic process, even when one disagrees with the result. A corresponding reluctance, at least, to demonize the elected leaders of the Jewish state.”

    –Rabbi David Wolpe, “Wolpe vs. Beinart,” JewishJournal.com

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
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    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
  • This week, one of the little ones in Auntie Erika’s life turned 8, and as per usual, he received a birthday gift of a book. I sent him Richard Michelson’s Lipman Pike: America’s First Home Run King, which was recently named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book for Young Readers. Check out this interview with Mr. Michaelson (part of the latest blog tour featuring Sydney Taylor Award titles).
  • The above-mentioned interview pointed me to Richard Michaelson’s website, where I discovered this essay Michaelson published some years back, on writing outside one’s own racial/cultural experience.
  • Win a copy of Joan Leegant’s wonderful novel, Wherever You Go.
  • Chas Newkey-Burden (“OyVaGoy”), presents a list of recommended books about Israel.
  • Terrific essay by Sara Ivry for Tablet on a Judy Blume classic, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself.
  • The Jewish Book Council has announced the winner and runner-up for this year’s Sami Rohr Prize: “This year’s prize is for non-fiction and is awarded to journalist Gal Beckerman. His book, When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), is a comprehensive and enthralling chronicle of the history of the Soviet Jewry movement. The judges believe Beckerman’s work shows ‘his clear commitment to becoming a storyteller for the Jewish people.’ This is Beckerman’s first book. The runner-up is Oxford lecturer Abigail Green, for her biography, Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero (Belknap Press of Harvard University). She receives a $25,000 prize.”
  • Sample excerpts (translated by Jessica Cohen) from Israeli author Alex Epstein’s forthcoming collection, For My Next Illusion I Will Use Wings.
  • You’ll find a (somewhat overwhelming) list of intriguing new titles in Jewish fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in The Jewish Week‘s spring arts preview.
  • And as London’s Jewish Book Week celebrates its 60th anniversary, it attempts to list 60 great Jewish books of the past six decades.

    • Shabbat shalom!