By Eli Rosenblatt and Marissa Brostoff
What exactly is “personal history”? Is it a cousin of political history, cultural history or revisionist history — an account steeped in perspective before objective truth — or is it just a fancy term for “memoir”? With a spate of memoirs-turned-fiction rattling book stalls, the Holocaust chronicles, published this year, chosen for review this week confront head-on the fine lines among scholarship, memoir and imagination, and show the increasing importance of second- and third-generation narratives — the retelling of a parent’s or grandparent’s experiences during the Shoah as filtered through the descendant’s research and remembrance.
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By Eli Rosenblatt
In the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, the cityscapes are dotted with evidence of the wanderers, invaders and empires that have crisscrossed this region throughout the centuries. Medieval monasteries built by native Slavs in the ninth century stand alongside fortresses built by Bulgarian generals shortly thereafter. Orthodox churches flank Turkish mosques, Roma settlements are only but a short walk from Byzantine remains and — as is expected in most distant European locales — Jewish history, culture and sometimes even some actual Jews reside quietly in the background.
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By Eli Rosenblatt
In the summer of 2005, the suburbs of Paris went up in flames. Television screens and newspapers were filled with images of frustrated Arab and African youths, most often the unemployed children or grandchildren of immigrants, burning and slashing the already dour infrastructure around them. It was a sight that many observers thought mirrored the frustration seen throughout the Middle East. In any case, the riots in the French suburbs were the sign of a vexing European crisis.
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By Eli Rosenblatt
What is Jewish Eastern Europe? A geographical space, or a frame of mind? The eternal homeland of Ashkenazic Jewry, or simply its birthplace? A field of academic inquiry, or just a touchstone for nostalgia?
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By Eli Rosenblatt
In northern New Mexico’s Sandoval County, there is a tombstone of a World War II veteran in a cemetery nestled in the desert brush. The name of the man, who was born in 1921 and died in 1980, is Adonay P. Gutierrez, and it is engraved on the stone below a cross. Nine different Native American communities reside in the surrounding counties, and even if cemetery visitors see his cross before his name, this lone Jew lies among them.
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Why a Rabbi Should Not Marry Outside the Faith
As First Maharats Graduate, Orthodox Women Leap Forward
Barbra Streisand Visits Western Wall After Landing in Israel With Puppy
Tapping Into Growing Lure of Hidden Jewish Heritage
Montreal's First Jewish Mayor Michael Applebaum Hit With Corruption Charges
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