Looking at Holocaust Literature Anew

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Two weeks ago, I attended a panel event, held at the Center for Jewish History here in Manhattan, that helped launch a new book, Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide. And last Friday, my account of that event was posted on the “Well Versed” blog of The Jewish Week, a New York-based newspaper that I subscribe to.

“Looking at Holocaust Literature Anew” is my debut post for Well Versed, and I hope it signals many to come–and perhaps even some bylines within the paper itself. We shall see.

Meantime, here’s the opening of the post:

Definitions can be tricky. Just try to find agreement on what qualifies (or not) as “Jewish literature.”
Perhaps equally arguable: any effort to define “Holocaust literature.”

In their new book, “Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide” (Brandeis University Press), David Roskies and Naomi Diamant propose some striking new terms.

Intrigued? Please keep reading!

(cross-posted on Practicing Writing)

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish news, primarily of the literary variety, from around the Web.

  • Jonathan Gondelman’s thoughtful review of a translation of Hans Keilson’s Life Goes On, in Jewish Ideas Daily.
  • Among the many recent appreciations of Edward I. Koch, my favorites include pieces by two writers I’ve admired for a long time: Jeffrey Goldberg and Thane Rosenbaum.
  • On Tablet, Jew-by-choice Jamaica Kincaid discusses her new book.
  • An intriguing list: “Top 25 Literary Classics About Israel.”
  • Remember this Keshet contest? The contest has produced The Purim Superhero, a new children’s book published by Kar-Ben. See this article from The Jewish Week all about this book featuring Nate, “a Jewish boy with two dads,” and the book’s author, Elisabeth Kushner.
  • Shabbat shalom.

    From My Bookshelf: Leon Blum’s “Lettres de Buchenwald”

    LBlumdocumentaryThanks to my academic background in modern French history, I was delighted when the Generations of the Shoah International (GSI) Book/Film Discussion Group announced its December 2012 guests: Jean Bodon and Antoine Malamoud, who would discuss the documentary Léon Blum: For All Mankind. Bodon directed the film; Malamoud is Blum’s great-grandson.

    I was familiar with much of Blum’s story, especially his status as France’s first Jewish premier, most remembered for leading the Popular Front that came to power in 1936. But the fine documentary—which I was able to watch easily through Amazon Prime; you can also find it on Netflix—covers one piece of Blum’s story that I am ashamed to admit I did not recall clearly at all: Blum was arrested by the Vichy government in 1940 and imprisoned in France for nearly three years, after which he was transferred to German custody. In April 1943, he was moved to a detention site just outside the main camp at Buchenwald, where he remained until 1945. When Antoine Malamoud pointed out that letters that Blum wrote from his German detention to his son Robert (Malamoud’s grandfather, who was a French prisoner-of-war in Germany at the time) have been collected and published, as Lettres de Buchenwald, I was intrigued.

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    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish news, primarily of the literary variety, from around the Web.

  • It’s always an occasion when a new issue of The Ilanot Review becomes available. The Winter 2013 issue is now online. Its theme: “Foreign Bodies.”
  • Another accolade for Francesca Segal’s The Innocents: the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. (Read the awards press release and my earlier impressions of the book.)
  • The January 2013 Jewish Book Carnival went live this week, hosted by People of the Books.
  • Novelist Ilan Mochari has some advice for Philip Roth’s biographer. In related news, registration for the upcoming Roth@80 conference is now open.
  • Finally: This is a special week for my story collection, Quiet Americans. Read all about it.
  • Shabbat shalom!

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish news, primarily of the literary variety, from around the Web.

  • Yiddish Book Center Fellow Jordan Kutzik reports on a recent UNESCO symposium, “The Permanence of Yiddish,” in Paris.
  • Over on Jewish Ideas Daily, D.G. Myers reviews the year just past in Jewish books.
  • Clever review of Oy! Only Six? Why Not More? Six-Word Memoirs on Jewish Life (I’m a proud contributor).
  • Something unexpected happened when Vanessa Hidary (“the Hebrew Mamita”) asked a pop-up bookstore at Limmud to stock her memoir.
  • Last, but not least: first issue of Gandy Dancer, a new literary journal based at SUNY-Geneseo, features an interview with me about Quiet Americans.
  • Shabbat shalom.