Beth Kissileff is co-editor of Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy and author of the novel Questioning Return. She is at work on a book about Jewish wisdom on healing from trauma and grief and lives in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh with her family.
Beth Kissileff
By Beth Kissileff
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Culture Chilly Scenes of Cleveland Synagogues
● Congregation By Raphael Silver AuthorHouse, 412 pages, $23.95 Over the course of his 83 years, Raphael Silver was many things: real estate developer; film producer, director, writer and distributor; climber of Mount Kilimanjaro at age 73; indefatigable collector of objects; and finally, at the end of his life, author of a novel, “Congregation.” Silver…
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The Schmooze Zombies, Jews and Aliens — A Q&A With Lavie Tidhar
(JTA) — Forget Iran and anti-Semitism. Lavie Tidhar and British fantasy author Rebecca Levene’s newly released short-story anthologies “Jews Versus Aliens” and “Jews Versus Zombies” (both published by Jurassic London, with all profits going to MOSAC, a British group that assists victims of child sex abuse), have Jews literally taking on a whole new world of…
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Life Female Spiritual Leader In Efrat Begins Role
Photograph by Sima Tuchman Freedman Earlier this month, Dr. Jennie Rosenfeld gave the inaugural lecture for her role as “manhiga ruhanit,” a spiritual leader, to an audience of 60 people at the Mishkan Tzipora synagogue in the Zayit neighborhood of Efrat. One of the first cohort of Jewishly learned modern Orthodox women to hold public positions in Israel, Rosenfeld, 34,…
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Culture How Ruby Namdar Wrote the Great Hebrew American Novel
I met Reuven “Ruby” Namdar on November 11, 2014 in New York, because I was writing a long piece about writers who live outside Israel and write in Hebrew. It turned out, by coincidence, that a few hours before our meeting he had gotten the biggest news of his career. He had been informed that…
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Culture ‘Jewish Oprah’ Carolyn Starman Hessel Turns Page From Jewish Book Council
(JTA) — When Carolyn Starman Hessel joined the New York-based Jewish Book Council in 1994 – at the request of friend Marsha Posner – she knew nothing about the publishing world. Since then, she’s been called the “Jewish Oprah” for her ability to help authors find audiences, and has enjoyed enormous clout and influence among…
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The Schmooze Writers Line Up For Israel’s Top Literary Prize
Reuven Namdar in New York. Photo by Beth Kissileff. In a time when the famed British Man Booker Prize has been opened to writers in English from all countries, Israel too has achieved a milestone. For the first time in its 14 years, the Sapir Prize, given by Mif’al Ha-Payis (Israel’s national lottery), has on…
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Opinion It’s Time To Put Women in Charge of the Mikveh
Illustration by Lily Padula A respected rabbi installing cameras in the preparation room of the mikveh in the building next door to his synagogue? The sensationalistic story of alleged voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel seems tailor-made to go viral in our internet age. So what can be done to counteract the negative publicity this gives to…
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Culture Pulitzer Prize-Winning Marilynne Robinson Discusses Her First Trip to Israel
Marilynne Robinson is the Pulitzer and Orange Prize-winning author of the novels “Housekeeping,” “Gilead,” “Home” and the forthcoming “Lila.” Not long before hostilities broke out in the region, she attended the fourth annual International Writer’s Festival at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim cultural center in Jerusalem. Robinson is a committed Christian who grew up Presbyterian and now…
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