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The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats

by Erika Dreifus on
8

If you’ll be in New York before January 29, you must stop by the Jewish Museum and take a walk through a wonderful exhibition, “The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats.”

When I first heard about this exhibition a few months ago, the very title evoked a pleasing memory. I visualized Peter, the child protagonist of The Snowy Day, as he appeared on the pages of the book before me in my kindergarten classroom in Brooklyn oh-so-many years ago. I remembered the book’s sheer beauty, its vivid colors and the magical way—still astonishing to me as a young reader, still astonishing now—that it captured the very same sense of wonder that I, too, experienced on snowy days.

Visiting the exhibition this past weekend, I recaptured some of that wonder.

But I have learned so much more about Keats’s life and work. For starters, the exhibition reveals that Keats was the son of impoverished Eastern European Jewish immigrants. He was born in Brooklyn—as Jacob Ezra Katz.

This weekend, I was awed anew by his (largely self-cultivated) artistic talent. Moreover, thanks to an exhibit-within-the-exhibit (“From Sambo to Stevie: African-Americans in Picture Books”), I learned a lot that I hadn’t fully appreciated about Keats’s contribution to the history of multicultural children’s literature (and about that subject more broadly).

Again, I urge you to spend some time at the Jewish Museum exploring the exhibition for yourself. But if that isn’t possible, you can get a substantial glimpse into this remarkable cultural offering online. However, here’s one item that I don’t believe you’ll find online: this sweet and friendly letter from Isaac Bashevis Singer to Ezra Jack Keats. (Please accept my apologies for the quality of my iPhone photo. I’ll confess that I was a bit verklempt in the moment, too!)

P.S. If I haven’t sufficiently swayed you, please read this take on the exhibition from The New York Times. That should do it!

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Shabbat shalom!

Attention, High Schoolers (and Parents Thereof)

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

It’s not every day (or, frankly, any day) that I wish I could be a high-schooler again. This new program is perhaps the only thing that could entice me to go back in time if I had the opportunity to do so.

Great Jewish Books brings together eighteen rising high school juniors and seniors to read, discuss, argue about, and fall in love with some of the most powerful and enduring works of modern Jewish literature.

During a week-long residency at the Yiddish Book Center on the campus of Hampshire College, participants will study with some of the nation’s most respected literary scholars, meet prominent contemporary authors, and connect with other teens from across the country. The 2012 program runs from Sunday, July 29 through Sunday, August 5.

High school students entering their junior or senior year in fall 2012 are eligible to apply.

Apply now!

Tuition, room, meals, and books will be provided for accepted students through a generous grant from Michael Steinhardt.

Application deadline is March 15, 2012. There is no application fee.

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Last week, I mentioned that I wouldn’t make it to the Amos Oz event at the 92nd Street Y. But Andrew Silow-Carroll was there.
  • Fantastic interview with author Allegra Goodman on her own (and others’) Jewish fiction. (via @realdelia)
  • Beth Kissileff reports on an International Conference on the Life and Work of Aharon Appelfeld, held October 26 and 27 at the University of Pennsylvania. Appelfeld was in attendance.
  • Over on the Literary Commentary blog, D.G. Myers argues that fantasy is a genre of Christianity.
  • A reminder that I’ll be speaking as a guest of the Jewish Historical Society of New York on Sunday, November 13. The topic: “Looking Backward: History, the Holocaust, and Literary Writing in the Third Generation.”

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • As I’ve already mentioned on my other blog, I hope that by the time The New York Review of Books publishes the second part of “A Jewish Writer in America,” which reflects a talk originally given by Saul Bellow in 1988, I’ll have been able to digest fully part one.
  • On the occasion of the release of MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman’s combination book/DVD about the creation of his famous Maus, Ruth Franklin writes: “What MetaMaus makes clear is that Maus, like the works of W.G. Sebald, exists somewhere outside of the genres as they are normally defined: We might call it ‘testimonially based Holocaust representation.’ But no matter what it is called, it gives the lie to the critics of Holocaust literature (as well as certain writers of it) who have insisted that either everything must be true or nothing is true.”
  • From The Literary Saloon’s M.A. Orthofer: “It’s always fun when literature and politics get mixed up, and Giulio Meotti’s wacky op-ed at Ynet, wondering: ‘Why do most of Israel’s prominent writers go easy on Jewish State’s enemies ?’ — which apparently amounts to Israel’s literary tragedy — is a fine example.” I agree with Orthofer that the argument isn’t handled well. But I’m less “indifferent” to that argument than he is.
  • New exhibit at the Yiddish Book Center in western Massachusetts: Isaac Bashevis Singer and his Artists. Runs October 16, 2011-February 15, 2012.
  • Andrew Silow-Carroll highlights an amusing anecdote related in Dwight Garner’s review of the new memoir by author Bruce Jay Friedman.

    • Shabbat shalom!