Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • I wasn’t able to make it to Amos Oz’s appearance at the 92nd Street Y this week, but while he was in town, Oz recorded this broadcast with Brian Lehrer, and I hope to get to that very soon!
  • Another big prize for Charles Foran’s biography of Mordecai Richler.
  • More about Irène Némirovsky.
  • Némirovsky gets a mention in Trina Robbins’s post for the Jewish Book Council, too. Robbins is the author of Lily Renée: Escape Artist, “a comic by a Jewish woman about a Jewish woman who drew comics.” (Lily Renée was also part of the history of the Kindertransport trains.)
  • The second part of “A Jewish Writer in America,” excerpted from a talk that Saul Bellow gave in 1984, is now online.
  • The praise keeps coming for short-story writer Edith Pearlman.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • Fascinating research on truth and lies about the origins of the famous Leon Uris novel Exodus. (via Jewish Ideas Daily)
  • In which you’ll read about Leon Wieseltier, David Grossman…and Occupy Wall Street.
  • Interesting reaction to the recent announcements of the latest National Book Award finalists and the Man Booker Prize winner in Eric Herschthal’s “The Agony & Ecstasy of Jewish Book Awards.”
  • This week, I picked up a copy of Wayne Hoffman’s Sweet Like Sugar, which will be the focus of the next Jewish Book Council Twitter Book Club (November 8). And this week, JewishJournal.com posted a review of the novel.

    • Shabbat shalom, everyone.

    USHMM Seeks Contract Researcher/Writer in D.C.

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Received this job announcement via email from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington:

    CONTRACT RESEARCHER
    Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

    The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is creating a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945.

    In support of this effort, the Center is seeking a contract researcher to gather information and write entries on particular sites (specifically, non-SS forced labor camps under governmental agencies and/or private industrial firms), using the Museum’s library and archival holdings as well as other resources in the Washington, DC area. The researcher may have the opportunity to publish his or her work in the encyclopedia. Some translation and editing duties may also be required. Work is to begin as soon as possible.

    Applicants must possess some education beyond the first degree and have experience in historical research and writing. Knowledge of the Holocaust is highly desirable. Applicants must have excellent writing skills in English and a thorough reading knowledge of German; other central- or eastern-European languages are desirable.

    The researcher will not be an employee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but will perform the work on a contract basis. The initial contract will require delivery of entires and other related products in accordance with a six-month schedule, with extensions to the contract possible after that. Payment will be commensurate with the researcher’s education and experience, ranging between $1,500 and $3,000 per month.

    The researcher will also have the opportunity to participate in Center and Museum events such as colloquia, seminars, workshops, fellows’ discussions and lectures.

    Please send a cover letter indicating dates of availability along with a curriculum vitae and a short writing sample (no more than 1,200 words) by 1 November to:

    Geoffrey P. Megargee, Ph.D.
    Applied Research Scholar
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
    100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW
    Washington, DC 20024-2126

    Email submissions are acceptable and may be sent to gmegargee(at)ushmm(dot)org

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • As I’ve already mentioned on my other blog, I hope that by the time The New York Review of Books publishes the second part of “A Jewish Writer in America,” which reflects a talk originally given by Saul Bellow in 1988, I’ll have been able to digest fully part one.
  • On the occasion of the release of MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman’s combination book/DVD about the creation of his famous Maus, Ruth Franklin writes: “What MetaMaus makes clear is that Maus, like the works of W.G. Sebald, exists somewhere outside of the genres as they are normally defined: We might call it ‘testimonially based Holocaust representation.’ But no matter what it is called, it gives the lie to the critics of Holocaust literature (as well as certain writers of it) who have insisted that either everything must be true or nothing is true.”
  • From The Literary Saloon’s M.A. Orthofer: “It’s always fun when literature and politics get mixed up, and Giulio Meotti’s wacky op-ed at Ynet, wondering: ‘Why do most of Israel’s prominent writers go easy on Jewish State’s enemies ?’ — which apparently amounts to Israel’s literary tragedy — is a fine example.” I agree with Orthofer that the argument isn’t handled well. But I’m less “indifferent” to that argument than he is.
  • New exhibit at the Yiddish Book Center in western Massachusetts: Isaac Bashevis Singer and his Artists. Runs October 16, 2011-February 15, 2012.
  • Andrew Silow-Carroll highlights an amusing anecdote related in Dwight Garner’s review of the new memoir by author Bruce Jay Friedman.

    • Shabbat shalom!