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Jewish Book Carnival: Call for Submissions

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

jbcsmallIf you follow the My Machberet blog, you may recall that every month, the blog and I participate in the Jewish Book Carnival. Organized by the Association of Jewish Libraries, the Carnival is a monthly online event “where bloggers who blog about Jewish books can meet, read and comment on each others’ posts.”

Each month’s Carnival posts on or about the 15th of the month, and different bloggers volunteer to serve as hosts. I’m proud to announce that the September 2013 Jewish Book Carnival–which will be the first Carnival of the new Jewish year 5774–will be hosted here on My Machberet.

New contributors are welcome! Please take a look at past Carnivals to get a sense of the posts that are featured. (Authors who blog–please note that we do not feature posts in which authors blog about their own books.)

If you’re interested in participating, please send the link to your selected contribution to me no later than Thursday, September 12 (earlier is better!). I look forward to hearing from you.

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
2

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • From London: new audio recordings from the 2013 Jewish Book Week festival. Listen to sessions that featured Shani Boianjiu, Edith Pearlman, Francesca Segal and Jami Attenberg, Laurent Binet, and many others.
  • Also from Britain: B.J. Epstein acquaints us with Into the Light: The Medieval Hebrew Poetry of Meir of Norwich for Wales Arts Review.
  • Back in the U.S.A., The Forward brings together authors Joanna Hershon and Adelle Waldman and asks them, among other questions, “What are your thoughts about being a Jewish writer?”
  • Lots of Jewish-lit info in the August Jewish Book Carnival, hosted by Leora Wenger.
  • On the Jewesses with Attitude blog, Miriam Cantor-Stone writes a letter to the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein.

    • Shabbat shalom, everyone.

    From My Archives: Defining “Jewish Writing”

    by Erika Dreifus on
    5

    StarSome of my (ever-evolving) ruminations on how to define what makes a book “Jewish” stem from my own writing, especially my short-story collection, Quiet Americans, which is inspired largely by the experiences of my paternal grandparents, German Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. But I’ve also considered the subject more broadly (for some examples, please see “further reading” links at the end of this post).

    Helping me shape my thoughts along the way: a website I discovered thanks to one of the innumerable “Jewish newsletters” I subscribe to. At The 5 Legged Table, educator Avraham Infeld’s teachings frame a discussion of the question: What is being Jewish all about? The underlying principles impress me as applicable to a related question: What is a Jewish book all about?

    Briefly, the 5 Legged Table comprises the following elements: (more…)

    From My Bookshelf: The Property, by Rutu Modan (trans. Jessica Cohen)

    by Erika Dreifus on
    8

    PropertyThese days, motivated in part by space constraints (I live in a New York City apartment and I’ve run out of bookshelves), and in part by financial ones, I think very hard before I buy a book. Generally speaking, I depend on libraries for many of the books that I don’t receive as review copies. And when I do buy a book, I’m often inclined to purchase the Kindle version.

    All of this a preface of sorts. Because something unusual happened a few days ago. I began reading Rutu Modan’s latest book, The Property. Translated by Jessica Cohen, this graphic novel depicts a grandmother-granddaughter pair on a journey from Israel to the grandmother’s native Poland, ostensibly to investigate the reclamation of the grandmother’s former home. About two minutes into my reading, I knew that this book was something special. And even though I read the entire book in one setting, I knew that I’d want to read it again. Maybe more than once. Maybe even after it was due back in the library. So I’ve gone ahead and purchased a copy of my own: a print copy.

    In short, I loved this book. But instead of writing a more complete review/description/analysis of my own, I’m going to point you to some illuminating items that are already available online. (I’ll also note that, to date, several of the five-star Goodreads reviews that I’ve read echo my own impressions.) I hope that these materials will help convince you to spend some time with The Property, too:

  • Review in Paste magazine (includes several sample pages/panels)
  • Profile of Modan in Publishers Weekly
  • Extensive interview with Modan in The Comics Journal (also includes excerpts from the book)
  • And a briefer, but still noteworthy, interview with Modan in Maisonneuve.

    • Finally, as a bonus of sorts, you might want to read through Modan’s account of “a week in culture” for The Paris Review (trans. Sivan Ben-Horin).

    Beyond Birthright: How Fortysomethings Can Cultivate Jewish Connections

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    ejewishphilanthropyToday’s eJewish Philanthropy newsletter includes an article by yours truly. Especially if you happen to a Jewish fortysomething, I hope you’ll spend a few moments reading “Beyond Birthright: How Fortysomethings Can Cultivate Jewish Connections.” (Lots of ideas here for those seeking Jewishly-inflected reading and writing resources, by the way.) Thanks in advance for taking a look!