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From My Bookshelf: The Curse of Gurs, by Werner L. Frank

by Erika Dreifus on
17

Last weekend, I journeyed to Columbus, Ohio, for a family Bat Mitzvah. There, I had the pleasure of spending time with Werner Frank, whose astounding genealogical research includes some of my own family history (on my dad’s side).

Werner, who emigrated from Germany as a child in 1937, has recently published a book focusing on a specific strand of this research: the story of the October 1940 deportation of Jews from the Baden region of Germany to Gurs, an internment camp in France. From Gurs, many of these Jews were eventually deported to Auschwitz. This helps explain the book’s full title: The Curse of Gurs: Way Station to Auschwitz.

The story is particularly painful because so many of Werner’s relatives were among these Baden Jews (as were some of mine). Moreover, Werner remains acutely aware of his good fortune in having left Baden before 1940 – a realization that I similarly share concerning my grandparents, who were also Baden-born.

I purchased a Kindle copy of Werner’s book while we were in Columbus; Werner was kind enough to then gift me with a print copy. As an historian, I was wowed from the outset by Dr. Michael Berenbaum‘s introduction: (more…)

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 literary news from around the Web.

  • Let’s start with a stupendous-looking opportunity from the Posen Foundation: “The Posen Foundation is proud to announce a unique international fellowship for junior scholars and emerging fiction writers. Each member of the Posen Society of Fellows receives a two-year, $40,000 award, as well as a special opportunity to collaborate with peers and learn from seasoned scholars and writers.” Eligibility: “Eligible scholars should be completing a doctoral dissertation on a topic related to modern Jewish history of culture. Eligible fiction writers should be working on a Jewish-themed novel or short story collection, and should not yet have published their first book.” Application deadline is January 15, 2013, and there’s no application fee. (Thanks to @NaomiDanis for the tip about this amazing program.)
  • Another new opportunity for writers: “Jewish Currents magazine announces its the first annual DORA and ALEXANDER RAYNES POETRY PRIZE for poems on the theme of ‘The American Dream.'” There *is* an entry fee for this competition ($18). Prizes include a cash award of $1,000 to the first-prize winner and $180 to each of two runners-up. “The top 36 poems will be published as a chapbook by Blue Thread, an imprint of Jewish Currents, in the summer of 2013. All submissions will be considered for publication in Jewish Currents. Submission deadline is January 15, 2013. NB: This competition will be judged by Gerald Stern.
  • This week brought us the latest Jewish Book Carnival, ably hosted by the Jewish Book Council’s “ProsenPeople” blog.
  • In a new essay, author Jon Papernick explores the meaning of the tattoo on his arm, in his view and in others’.
  • And in case you missed it, over on my other blog I’ve written about a book that I had the privilege of reading before it was published this month: Susan Kushner Resnick’s You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me About Living, Dying, Loving, Fighting, and Swearing in Yiddish.

    • Shabbat shalom.

    From My Bookshelf: Famous Drownings in Literary History, by Kevin Haworth

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Okay, Kevin Haworth’s latest book, an essay collection, isn’t on my physical bookshelf. But it is among my recent Kindle purchases. And I recommend it.

    I recommend it not only because, in the years since I interviewed him about his prize-winning novel, Kevin has become a friend and valued colleague in the arena of Jewish literary culture (even if we don’t always agree). I recommend it because Kevin is a talented writer whose nonfiction is at least as compelling as his fiction; because his is a voice worth knowing; and because his take on elements of Jewish identity in our time–whether he writes about the circumcision of his son, the culture of the Catskills, or what it’s like to leave Ben Gurion Airport just after the Israeli victims’ bodies have returned there from a terrorist attack in Bulgaria–should reach a wide audience.

    If you’d like a taste of the previously published essays that featured in this collection, may I recommend the one titled “The News from Bulgaria”? I suspect strongly that after you read it, you’ll want to learn more about Kevin and his book.

    From My Bookshelf: THERE’S JEWS IN TEXAS? Poems by Debra L. Winegarten

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    So here’s a tribute to the power of social media and technology.

    In addition to participating in the monthly Jewish Book Carnival, I’m a member of the Carnival’s group on Goodreads. The Carnival isn’t intended for authors to promote their own books–the idea is to provide a forum for readers to share news, reviews, and/or interviews featuring (other) authors and books of Jewish interest.

    But last week, our moderator created a new thread in the Goodreads group where authors can promote their own books. And when I scanned that thread, I noticed Debra L. Winegarten’s post about her poetry chapbook, There’s Jews in Texas?

    There’s Jews in Texas? won Poetica Magazine’s 2011 Chapbook Contest. It comprises 13 poems, the first several of which are situated in childhood and evidently reflect aspects of Winegarten’s upbringing in Texas in the 1960s (see a sample poem on the author’s website). Winegarten’s mother is a lively voice in these early poems. Even after Ruthe Winegarten’s passing (midway through the collection, “The Three R’s” discloses that she died the same week as Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles), she remains present as the book moves forward in time. (And move forward it does: “The Price of a World,” is a response to the March 2011 massacre of the Fogel family.)

    In her Goodreads post, the author helpfully noted that the book is available to Amazon Prime members as part of the Kindle Lending Library; that is how I obtained and read it (another thumbs-up for technology). The poems in There’s Jews in Texas? are both accessible and provocative, and I’m glad to have discovered and read them.

    From My Bookshelf: A Wedding in Great Neck, by Yona Zeldis McDonough

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Today marks the release date for A Wedding in Great Neck, the latest novel by Yona Zeldis McDonough. My Machberet wishes Yona a hearty Mazel Tov!

    Some of you may recognize Yona for her role as fiction editor for Lilith magazine. I can still remember picking up the phone in my kitchen 10 years ago when Yona called to let me know that she and the magazine wanted to publish my short story (which the magazine retitled “Polar Region”). Yona is responsible for affirming and advancing the work of so many fiction writers, especially those of us on the emerging end of things. We owe her a lot.

    Which is one reason why I was so happy to be offered a complimentary advance reading copy of A Wedding in Great Neck, and why I’m equally pleased to give it a public shout-out here. If you follow me on Goodreads, you know that I read this hefty book in all of two days. It’s a family story–reminiscent of tales spun by Jonathan Tropper and Joshua Henkin–that takes place in a brief span (in this case, a single wedding day). There are lots of Jewish characters, some of whom you’ll likely respond to more positively than others. (Personally, I wanted to shake teenaged Justine more than once, especially each time she began spouting off against Israel.)

    Here’s wishing Yona and her new book much success as they meet the world together.