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-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • Nice to see yet another reader–this time, the “Reading Rabbi”–has enjoyed the new translation of Aharon Appelfeld’s Suddenly, Love.
  • So sorry I discovered the PEW-ish theatrical project too late to attend.
  • Consider yourself forewarned–you may never be able to approach Fiddler on the Roof with the same fondness you once did after you read this piece by Ruth Wisse.
  • New Jersey Jewish News Editor-in-Chief Andrew Silow-Carroll writes about that tricky term–tribalism.
  • The Westchester (New York) Jewish Film Festival seeks a part-time Associate Programmer.

    • Shabbat shalom.

    Words of the Week: Jane Eisner

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    “But divestment is not only about wielding punishment; it’s about shaping a moral conversation. Some of us feel as good about withholding our dollars as we do about spending them. The Presbyterians stressed that the vote was a statement about the occupation, not about Israel’s right to exist or, heaven forfend, their love of their Jewish brothers and sisters.

    Ah, but it is. Because when they singled out only Israel’s actions, troubling though they may be, at a time when the region is aflame with tribal violence, they did hold one nation to a standard that others are not obliged or expected to meet. How is that not unfair and hypocritical? How does that not undermine Israel’s legitimacy?

    As for their love for me and my Jewish brethren, it may be sincere but it’s awfully misguided. You’ll not usually find me in the Netanyahu amen corner, nor am I prone to identify anti-Semitism at every turn. But when Jewish treatment of Palestinians is judged worse than the way any other dominant group treats a minority, when it is deemed worthy of unique sanction, when other horrors around the world are ignored — how can I believe that this isn’t about the Jews? And that, my Presbyterian friends, is anti-Semitism.”

    Source, Jane Eisner, “Why Presbyterian Divestment Feels Like Anti-Semitism,” in The Forward.