Jewish literature
A Voice Saying Something RightTuesday, January 29, 2013 by David Curzon | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Poet Harvey Shapiro, who passed away this month at age 88, captured in plain words the mystery of everyday life, the trauma of war, and the grandeur of Jewish tradition.
From Reparations to AtonementMonday, January 28, 2013 by Ismar Schorsch | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Where recognition of the Holocaust was once restricted to the office of the Chancellor, there is a grassroots commitment in today's Germany to take ownership of the past.
Buczacz by Way of Newark: On Literary Lives at the EndThursday, January 10, 2013 by Jeffrey Saks | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Philip Roth has bowed out gracefully from the literary world. But for the great Hebrew writer S. Y. Agnon, retirement was never an option.
It’s All Happening at the ZooMonday, January 7, 2013 by D. G. Myers | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Howard Jacobson's latest novel, Zoo Time, is not immediately recognizable as Jewish fiction; but Jacobson again portrays the fear, uncertainty, and ambivalence that characterize the modern Jew.
2012: A Year in BooksWednesday, January 2, 2013 by D. G. Myers | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Books are dying—everyone says so—but you couldn’t prove it by the Jews. 2012 was a very good year for Jewish books: here are the best 40.
Editors' Picks
When Ben-Gurion Met Jabotinsky A. B. Yehoshua, David Janner-Klausner, Fathom. Jabotinsky: "You have turned from being a Jew to being an Eretz Yisraelite." Ben-Gurion: "That is why I see the world and judge it from the perspective of this small patch of land." (Fiction)
Paradise Regained? D. G. Myers, Commonplace Blog. Francesca Segal's latest novel The Innocents, a reworking of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence for Jewish north-west London, substitutes tragedy for repentance and redemption.
Harold Bloom’s Divine Obsession David Mikics, Tablet. Literary critic Harold Bloom dismisses halakhic Judaism as a "fossil." But, 20 years after his work The Book of J, the Bible continues to obsess him.
Finding Books Within Books Yitz Landes, Talmud Blog. Ancient Hebrew fragments that were used as bindings for Latin manuscripts are being rescued across Europe. But they are not a European Genizah.
The Esther Code Rebecca Benhamou, Times of Israel. Just before Nazi Julius Streicher was hanged, he said, “Purim festival, 1946.” A new book, claiming that the Book of Esther predicated the Holocaust, has become a best-seller in France.
The Paper Brigade Adam Soclof, JTA. When the Nazis occupied Vilna, they planned to destroy large numbers of Yiddish texts. A group of Jewish scholars worked to save the books from destruction.
Found in Translation Yehuda Amichai, New Republic. Robert Alter's new translations of a selection of Yehuda Amichai's poems breathe fresh life into the work of one of Israel's literary giants.
A Writer's Story Nathan Englander, Chicago Tribune. “When I set out to write my Argentina book,” recalls Nathan Englander, “I was going to write a Jew-free novel.” But “the Jews, they just got in everywhere.” (Interview by Kevin Nance)
Rochl and the World of Ideas Sheindl Franzus-Garfinkle, Jewish Fiction .net. Rochl’s mother laments the perils of study: “Your brother convinced himself he had to study in America. Now he’s there working like a dog. See what comes of your enlightenment!” (Fiction)
Holocaust Tourism Wolfgang Höbel, Spiegel. Tuvia Tenenbom’s raucous but disturbing travelogue of modern Germany, rife with accusations of anti-Semitism, shocked the country’s press last year. Now it has been translated into German.