Notes from Around the Web: Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Many apologies for missing last week’s lit-links post. And fair warning: I’m unlikely to post next Friday as well: I’ll be away at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. But don’t worry: I shall return!

  • The New Vilna Review presents an informative interview with Carol Hupping of the Jewish Publication Society, digging into the JPS’s past, present, and future.
  • Having recently gone to see the Hannah Senesh exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I appreciated Elissa Strauss’s post about it for The Forward’s Sisterhood blog.
  • Fiction Writers Review has posted an exceedingly interesting interview with Jacob Paul, author of Sarah/Sara, which I reviewed (also for FWR) last year.
  • I’ve been noticing a growing cluster of Holocaust-related books authored by grandchildren of those who lived under Nazism. Among the latest (in addition, of course, to my own Quiet Americans, which was officially released last week) is Johanna Adorjan’s An Exclusive Love. Subtitled “A Memoir,” Adorjan’s book is, in the words of Jewish Journal’s reviewer Elaine Margolin, “an imaginative piece of work that blends fact and fantasy.”
  • And on a related note: Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review featured a piece on Ferdinand von Schirach’s Crime (translated by Carol Brown Janeway): “To say that Germans and guilt have a special relationship would be to dive into the deep end of platitude, but in von Schirach’s case it’s difficult not to raise the issue, and not only because he’s titled his preface ‘Guilt.’ His grandfather, Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth for most of the 1930s and later the wartime governor of Vienna, was convicted of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg.” Tbr, to be sure.
  • Finally, I hope that you’re following my virtual book tour for my new short-story collection, Quiet Americans. Several of the “stops” feature material of Jewish literary interest. Check out the itinerary (with brief content descriptions) here. (Plus, some really lovely reviews have been coming in.)

    • Shabbat shalom!

    For the International Day of Commemoration: Reznikoff Reading “Holocaust”

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    For me, at least, Yom Hashoah remains the primary Holocaust Remembrance Day of record, so to speak. But in 2005, the United Nations designed January 27 as an “annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust” (Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945).

    And yesterday, I discovered an amazing and relevant online resource: excerpts from a recording of poet Charles Reznikoff reading from his last book, Holocaust. (For background on Holocaust, read Charles Bernstein’s exceptionally instructive essay, and for information on a full CD—the product of many years of labor by Professor Abraham Ravett—please read this.)

    I’ve begun listening to the excerpts. It’s not easy to listen to them consecutively, without a break. But today of all days, do try to listen to some of them.

    (Thanks to the NewPages blog for this very special find.)

    Thursday’s Post-Publication Post: Do You Know What Today Is?

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Today, eight days after the official publication of my debut story collection, Quiet Americans, I’m not going to blog (or link to) my book’s latest reviews, the virtual tour, or anything along those lines. Instead, focusing on the history behind my book, I want to take this opportunity remind us all about today’s significance: Today is the annual International Day of Commemoration to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

    In my Jewish education as a child and young adult, I learned about (and now routinely remember) Yom Hashoah. As My Jewish Learning explains:

    The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah” –literally the “Day of (Remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan–a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers).

    The date was selected by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) on April 12, 1951. The full name became formal in a law that was enacted by the Knesset on August 19, 1953. Although the date was established by the Israeli government, it has become a day commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide.

    (In 2011, Yom Hashoah will begin at sundown on Sunday, May 1.)

    Recently, however, I’ve learned about a second commemorative day. In 2005, the United Nations designated “27 January–the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp–as an annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust.”

    So today, too, we remember. And since I’m not pointing you to any links concerning my book, I humbly ask that you take just a few moments out of your day to click over to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day mini-site curated by Yad Vashem, “the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust” in Israel.

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • This week’s Fiction Writers Review book giveaway is Jacob Paul’s debut novel, Sarah/Sara, which I reviewed for FWR last year. Even more up-to-date is this interview with the author, posted on FWR this week.
  • Speaking of giveaways, you can still sign up for the current Goodreads giveaway of my short-story collection, Quiet Americans (three copies!) or, simply by joining our Facebook fan page, become eligible for a simultaneous offering of two more copies of the collection.
  • Cathy Day has written an engaging (and, I’d argue, highly valid) essay on “Academia’s Novel Crisis.” Bonus: She has also posted an equally engaging (and, I fear, equally valid) item on the process of getting that essay written and published.
  • Ever wonder how literary-journal editors make their selections! In the case of Sycamore Review‘s editors, you need wonder no longer. Nonfiction Editor Chidelia Edichie explains: “[W]e figured we’d like to share some of our “picking” process with our readers, and perhaps most importantly, with our submitters. What is it about a certain poem, essay, or story that makes us stop, light up, and then hungrily read for more? We hope that, in articulating ‘why we chose it’ to you, our readers, it’ll help us understand our work as editors even more deeply.”
  • Have you been following our virtual book tour? Itinerary here.