Julia M. Klein, the Forward’s contributing book critic, has been a two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. Follow her @JuliaMKlein and @juliamklein.bsky.social
Julia M. KleinContributing Book Critic
By Julia M. Klein
-
Culture Another Hidden Jewish Girl — But Not Anne Frank
The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found By Bart van Es Penguin Press, 304 pages, $28 It’s impossible to think of the Holocaust in the Netherlands without conjuring the ghost of Anne Frank. And though Frank and her diary were exceptional, her story embodies the opposing fates of Dutch…
-
Culture In Vichy France, The Nazi Era Viewed Up Close
Deposition 1940-1944: A Secret Diary of Life in Vichy France By Léon Werth; edited and translated by David Ball Oxford University Press, 368 pages, $34.95 The French Jewish novelist and essayist Léon Werth spent World War II, buffeted by history but shielded from its worst consequences, chronicling the passivity, inertia and gradual political awakening of…
-
Culture For These Doomed Passengers, There Was No Refuge in Cuba
The German Girl By Armando Lucas Correa, translated by Nick Caistor Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, 368 pages, $26.99 The drama of the St. Louis, the ship that once promised last-minute rescue for hundreds of German Jewish refugees, is compelling enough without fictional embellishment. In 1939, the trans-Atlantic liner voyaged from Hamburg, Germany, to an abruptly…
-
Film & TV Why Hollywood Used To Be Better For Women
Nobody’s Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood By J. E. Smyth Oxford University Press, 328 pages, $29.95 Just the Funny Parts: … And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys’ Club By Nell Scovell Dey Street Books, 336 pages, $27.99 It’s even worse than you suspected. But it was once better…
-
Culture Before Sondheim And Miranda, There Was Rodgers And Hammerstein
Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution By Todd S. Purdum Henry Holt & Co., 400 pages, $32 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II met cute at Columbia University’s Varsity Show. Hammerstein had helped write the musical variety show. Rodgers’s elder brother, Morty Rodgers, a fraternity pal of Hammerstein’s, introduced the two afterward. Rodgers, not…
-
Culture Paul Goldberg’s Dizzying Plunge Into The Kingdom Of Uselessness
The Château By Paul Goldberg Picador, 384 pages, $26 As the Age of Trump dawns, fictional Washington Post reporter William M. Katzenelenbogen finds himself broke and out of a job. In his prime, the Russian American Katzenelenbogen – heck, let’s join novelist Paul Goldberg in calling him Bill – was an ace science investigative reporter,…
-
Culture A Devastating History Of Genocide — In One Ukrainian Town
ANATOMY OF A GENOCIDE: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A TOWN CALLED BUCZACZ By Omer Bartov Simon & Schuster, 416 pages, $30 In researching the Ukrainian town of Buczacz, Omer Bartov wanted to uncover his own family history. But only a few traces of that history remained. What “Anatomy of a Genocide” provides instead is…
-
Culture A Family, Dispersed And Splintered By The Holocaust
MAYBE ESTHER: A FAMILY STORY By Katja Petrowskaja; translated from the German by Shelley Frisch Harper, 272 pages, $25.99 By Julia M. Klein More than seven decades after World War II and the Holocaust ruptured civilization, we’re still trying to make sense of the fallout. Intimate first-person accounts have ceded ground, in large part, to…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
- 2
Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
- 3
Fast Forward Hanukkah shooting leaves at least 15 dead at Australia’s most popular beach
- 4
Fast Forward Father and son suspects in Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram by law enforcement
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish רבנישע כּתבֿים ווײַזן אומגעריכטע פֿאַרבינדונגען צווישן ייִדיש און לאַדינאָRabbinical texts reveal surprising links between Yiddish and Ladino
לויט אַ נײַ בוך פֿאָרשונגען האָבן טראַדיציאָנאַליסטן אין ביידע עדות געהאַלטן, אַז ייִדן מוזן אָפּהיטן זייער גערעדט לשון
-
Opinion Why Poland’s president canceled his menorah lighting — and how the West helped make that happen
-
Fast Forward 4 House Democrats introduce bill that would enact progressive vision for fighting antisemitism
-
Yiddish אַ ייִדיש־רעדנדיק קינד דאַרף אַ „שטעטל“׃ ווי עלטערן קומען זיי אַנטקעגןIt takes a village to raise a child in Yiddish: How parents are doing it
מחוץ די חסידישע קרײַזן האָבן געוויסע עלטערן געשאַפֿן זייערע אייגענע ייִדיש־סבֿיבֿות
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
