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Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • This week, Josh Lambert’s new books column looks at an array of “post-Holocaust” titles.
  • Judy Bolton-Fasman reviews Avi Steinberg’s Running the Books for The Jerusalem Report.
  • Interesting item on “Creativity and Cultural Arts in Today’s Jewish Europe.”
  • I am going to have to go see this exhibit at The Jewish Museum.
  • A new podcast from The Book of Life reminds me that Joan Leegant’s novel, Wherever You Go, remains on my tbr list.
  • In the July-August Moment magazine: Katharine Weber’s review of the new Wendy Wasserstein biography by Julie Salamon. And much more.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • Another superb glimpse into French-Jewish literature, courtesy of Benjamin Ivry/The Forward.
  • Received an alert this week from the Museum of Jewish Heritage about what looks to be an excellent fall exhibition: “Emma Lazarus: Poet of Exiles.” Opens October 26.
  • Papers sought for a panel on “Translating the Holocaust” (event: Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, Rochester, N.Y., March 2012).
  • The PJ Library seeks a “PJ Goes to School Educator.” Job is based in West Springfield, Mass.
  • Jonathan Kirsch, on Jews and Baseball.

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Prize for Essay on Philip Roth’s Work

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    “The Philip Roth Society invites submissions from graduates working on any aspect of the work of Philip Roth for consideration for the Siegel/McDaniel Award. The Siegel/McDaniel Award is an annual prize awarded in recognition of high-quality work by graduate students in the field of Roth studies written in the past year (ending June 1).”

    There’s no entry fee indicated. Prize confers cash award of $250. Deadline: September 1, 2011.

    From My Bookshelf: Habibi & Yow, by Althea O. Silverman

    by Erika Dreifus on
    10

    The other day, mulling over a possible short story idea, I needed to know how Jewish-American families celebrated a certain Jewish holiday a couple of generations ago. Had the celebrations changed over time, and if so, how? Along with the websites and scholarly books I consulted, I turned to one very special resource: a battered copy of Althea O. Silverman’s Habibi and Yow: A Little Boy and His Dog.

    My copy of Habibi and Yow isn’t really mine. First published in 1946 by Bloch Publishing Company (“The Jewish Book Concern”), the book went into a second printing in 1948. That’s the printing that produced the copy that belonged to my father when he was a little boy. It remained in my grandparents’ home once my father was grown.

    Since my grandparents didn’t own many books, I spent innumerable childhood hours first listening to my grandmother read me the stories about this little American Jewish boy and his dog, and then reading them to myself. Habibi and Yow provided some of my earliest introductions to the ideas, history, and customs surrounding Shabbat (“Shabbos,” in Habibi and Yow), Purim, and Shavuot (“Shavuos”), among other holidays.

    As an adult, I’ve been interested to learn that Althea O. Silverman wrote other books, including one about Habibi’s Adventures in the Land of Israel, which was published in 1951. Her husband, Rabbi Morris Silverman, served a Conservative Hartford, Conn., congregation for nearly 40 years. According to Shuly Rubin Schwartz’s The Rabbi’s Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life, Althea Silverman was “deeply concerned about the dearth of appealing Jewish educational materials for children.” Habibi and Yow helped address that need. I, for one, remain grateful.



    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • This past week came the very excellent news that poet and professor Rick Chess has joined the blogging team over at “Good Letters,” the blog of Image Journal. Go read his first post, “Torah in My Mouth,” and look forward, as I am, to his future contributions.
  • Kenneth Sherman’s appreciation of Yuri Suhl’s One Foot in America (originally published in 1950), reminded me that Sherman’s own What the Furies Bring remains on my nightstand, still waiting to be read.
  • The New York Times reveals what’s interesting to Israeli author Etgar Keret.
  • I’ve been a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm for many seasons, in part because my dad and his parents and grandmother were neighbors of Larry David’s family in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, way back when. Also, my dad is occasionally mistaken for Larry David himself! The show always makes me laugh, and this season, which began Sunday night, is no exception. Check out this column from The Forward, focusing on the show’s particularly Jewish qualities. (Bonus: some down-home NYC footage.)
  • On a much more serious note: Adam Kirsch has yet again added a book to my tbr list: “There is a double meaning in the subtitle of René Blum and the Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life (Oxford, $29.95), the new biography by Judith Chazin-Bennahum. The life of René Blum was lost in the Holocaust: Like tens of thousands of French Jews, he was deported from Drancy, the internment camp in Paris, to Auschwitz, where he died in 1942. But it was the way he lived, not the way he died, that makes him such an elusive presence even in his own biography.”
  • Don’t forget that the next Jewish Book Council Twitter Book Club is scheduled for next Wednesday, July 20. Featured title: Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial. Lipstadt will participate in the chat.

    • Shabbat shalom!