A fabulous video of a few moments from the recent Debbie Friedman Memorial Concert at HUC-JIR (Jerusalem). I love this arrangement. It is astonishing to realize (again) how Debbie Friedman influenced so many of us in our connections to our Judaism. May she rest in peace.
Israel, uniquely among nations, suffers from being turned into a synecdoche–of the part being taken for the whole. The other theater companies involved in the Globe’s program–whether from China, Zimbabwe or the United States–are simply not subject to the same scrutiny of their nation’s politics. No one would think of boycotting the English theater because Britain had been involved in the bloody occupation of two countries in recent memory. That would be absurd. yet it is not absurd when it comes to Israel.
Source: Stephen Marche, “Another Trial for Shylock,” The New York Times
Shabbat shalom!
In a “Dear Reader” note on his website, author Ayad Akhtar writes:
Growing up in the “heartland,” I became acutely aware that my peers didn’t know what to make of Islam. It wasn’t ignorance; they were good, smart people. They’d just never been exposed to it. Since then, exposure to Islam has grown, for all the wrong reasons.
In writing American Dervish I wanted to share my sense of Islam in America. To render for the reader Islam’s beauty, its simplicity, and vivid spirituality. All of which I wanted to express in an American setting, in an American idiom.
But as with so many religions, Islam’s beauty comes with troubling traditions. In writing the book, one of things I discovered was that I could not write about Islam truthfully without also exposing the fuller spectrum of my experience in Muslim-America.
A few days ago, I finished reading American Dervish. It is an important and provocative novel, and I recommend it highly. I’m still thinking about it. In particular–and not surprisingly for a blog post appearing on My Machberet–I’m thinking of how to respond to this question in the “Reader’s Guide” section of Akhtar’s website: “What did you think of the relationship between Islam and Judaism in the novel?” (more…)
I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen anything quite like this before: paired writing contests–one in fiction and one in nonfiction–as part of a book project, Summer Haven: How the Catskills Experienced the Holocaust, edited by Holli Levitsky, Professor of English and Director of Jewish Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and Phil Brown, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, “which will provide a locus for literature exploring the experience of the Holocaust in the Catskills.”
Clicking the link above, you’ll find much more explanation about these contests. I’ll just give you some basics: no entry fees indicated and deadlines of July 1, 2012. For each contest, the winner will receive $500 and up to $500 for travel costs to present the work at the November 2012 Jewish American and Holocaust Literature Symposium in Miami. Winning works will also be published in the Levitsky/Brown book.