Superb profile of Molly Antopol by Sandee Brawarsky for The Jewish Week. (I’ve finally bought Antopol’s The UnAmericans–now I just need to find the time to read it!)
From the same source that brought us the PJ Library: “The Massachusetts-based Harold Grinspoon Foundation recently launched Maktabat al-Fanoos, Arabic for Lantern Library, which provides Arabic children’s books to Arab Israeli children in kindergarten and pre-K.”
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam CohenEvery Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.
Rabbi David Wolpe: “I’m often asked to recommend books. Here are five unique and powerful modern works that you may have missed or forgotten. These works will enrich, elevate and educate any Jew, indeed any human being.”
Fathom shares an interview with Sayed Kashua, “one of the [Israel]’s most successful writers.” (A lot to think about here–but I admit getting stuck with the suggestion that Gaza is currently “occupied” by Israel.)
“As I discovered while conducting dissertation research on this topic, the ‘belle Juive’ (beautiful Jewess) trope was to early 19th-century French literature something like what the ‘shiksa’ would become for American Jewish writers: an exotic object of desire, but also someone one might marry to affirm progressive, universalist ideals.” Phoebe Maltz Bovy offers some interesting thoughts on “the intermarriage script.”
If, like me, you missed the chance to see the Elif Batuman/Gary Shteyngart double-feature at the 92nd Street Y earlier this month, you can catch the video here.
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.
For those of you in Israel: Check out this mini-conference on literary translation coming up at Bar Ilan University. (An email announcement that I received assures: “The conference is in English and is free of charge.”)
Reading through the January 2014 edition of the Generations of the Shoah International (GSI) newsletter this week, I realized that I might not yet have recommended this monthly e-publication for anyone wanting to follow events and publications relating to Holocaust commemoration and study. Or it has been a long time since I’ve done so.
On my tbr list: Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Roth Unbound. Especially after D.G. Myers’s review.
An intriguing post from Theater J, including student reflections on Motti Lerner’s play “The Admission.”
And in case you missed it: an all-too-brief preview of notable “Jewish books” coming in 2014.
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.
The Association for Jewish Studies annual conference begins on Sunday, December 15. I’ll be following along via the Twitter hashtag #AJS13.
My thanks to Zackary Sholem Berger for this introduction to the poetry of Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, on The Forward‘s Arty Semite blog.
This week I’m reading Jason K. Friedman’s prize-winning short-story collection Fire Year, described by Publishers Weekly as “seven funny, fearless outsiders’ tales set in Savannah and Atlanta—some depicting bygone orthodox Jewish communities, others the rife-with-irony ‘New South’.” The opening story, “Blue,” previously won the Moment-Karma Foundation fiction contest.
“The YIVO Institute and Bard College are pleased to announce the third year of the Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization. This program, the first of its kind in the U.S., presents an integrated curriculum in the culture, history, language, and literature of East European Jews.” Courses offerings include “The Other Sholem Aleichem,” with Jonathan Brent; “New York Intellectuals Revisited,” with Adam Kirsch; “Jewish Literary Life in the Soviet Union,” with Gennady Estraikh; and more.
Writing-related resources, news, and reflections to enjoy over the weekend.