Mindy Aloff
By Mindy Aloff
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Culture Dear Aby
Obsessed by Art — Aby Warburg: His Life and His Legacy By Francesca Cernia Slovin Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli Xlibris, 227 pages, $22.99. Without a belief that art is decipherable — that an onlooker can, through contemplation of symbols and patterns in a work of art, commune with intellects and sensibilities far…
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Culture A Lost Original Springs Up Anew
The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague By Yudl Rosenberg Edited and translated by Curt Leviant Yale University Press, 256 pages, $25. In our sci-fi era of real commercial robots, which can be programmed to vacuum and to act as surrogate pets, the Jewish legend of the 16th-century rescuer Golem of…
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Culture Revisiting ‘Green Pastures’
The Book of Psalms: A Translation With Commentary By Robert Alter W.W. Norton, 518 pages, $35. Robert Alter’s new edition of the Hebrew Psalms is not for everyone: It requires concentration, unfettered time and patience. Each newly translated psalm must be read through as a poem, then analyzed using the highly detailed footnotes, then reread…
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Culture Dangerous Sport
Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 By David Clay Large W.W. Norton & Company, 416 pages, $27.95. Next year, the Summer Olympic Games will take place in Beijing. This choice of location was a controversial decision by the International Olympic Committee, owing to concerns in the West that China could use the Olympics as a…
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Culture A Haunting Tale of a Lost World
Grandfather’s Acres By Isaac Metzker Translated from the Yiddish by Margaret and Yossel Birstein Gefen Publishing House, 432 pages, $19.95. Some of you will know the name Isaac Metzker (1900-1984). He was a teacher for the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring who also served for decades as a journalist for the Jewish Daily Forward, where he edited…
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Culture What We Know, and Don’t, About Eichmann
Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, And Trial of a ‘Desk Murderer’ By David Cesarani Da Capo Press, 464 pages, $27.50. * * *| Most of what we know – or think we know – about Adolf Eichmann, a notorious Nazi functionary, may be wrong. Or so readers will surmise from “Becoming Eichmann,” David Cesarani’s…
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Culture The Angel of Death Narrates a New Tale for Young Readers
The Book Thief By Markus Zusak Knopf Books for Young Readers, 552 pages, $16.95. * * *| Markus Zusak’s intensely provocative, deeply imagined and magnificently produced new novel, “The Book Thief,” concerns a group of German children who are members of the Hitler Youth during the early 1940s. We learn of their families, their tribulations,…
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Culture The Animated Life of a Film Giant
Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and The Animation Revolution By Richard Fleischer (foreword by Leonard Maltin) University Press of Kentucky, 232 pages, $27.50. * * *| In 1925, pioneering New York film animator Max Fleischer decided that what the world needed was a five-reel feature film that combined animation and live action, to explain…
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