Author Ottessa Moshfegh has defied the old warning, “never meet your heroes.” She wasn’t disappointed. Those who’ve read Moshfegh’s second novel, 2018’s “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” won’t have much trouble guessing who that hero is. Like her book’s unnamed protagonist, who spends a year fettered to her bed self-prescribing medication and binging films…
Israeli writer Amos Oz, Israel Prize laureate, died on Friday at 79 after fighting cancer. My beloved father, Amos Oz, a wonderful family man, an author, a man of peace and moderation, died today peacefully after a short battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his lovers and knew it to the end. May his…
Israeli author Moriel Rothman-Zecher was detained and questioned at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv this week, before being released and told to think of the conversation as a “warning.” Rothman-Zecher, the 28-year-old author of the novel “Sadness is A White Bird,” was stopped by an official identifying as a member of Shin-Bet, the Israeli…
Ah, the Jews have done it again! Not content to pioneer monotheism, invent lasers, and sire Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we have written one of Cher’s favorite books in the mortal world. In an interview with People Magazine that should strongly be considered by the Jewish Publication Society for biblical canonization, living icon Cher said this:…
Gross Anatomy by Mara Altman “I thought there were just two kinds of girls in the world. The fat ones and the skinny ones. I never knew there were so many things to hate about myself.” Mean Girls There is an infinite amount of things that can be wrong with a person’s body. From chin…
The finalists for the 2018 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, announced today, are Ilana Kurshan’s “If All the Seas Were Ink,” Sara Yael Hirschhorn’s “City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement,” Shari Rabin’s “Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America,” Yair Mintzker’s “The Many Deaths of Jew…
A list of “21 Books You Don’t Have To Read” by GQ seems to exist to give 21 pretentious people the opportunity to describe the specific ways in which they are pretentious. The fact is, there is only one book in the world you absolutely should not read, and that is “Lolita”, a diamond-covered trashcan…
“Baywatch” star and “Playboy” model Pamela Anderson and Orthodox Rabbi Shmuly Boteach have written a book about how to have better sex. “Lust for Love: Rekindling Intimacy and Passion in Your Relationship,” is out next week. Theirs is a (professional) love to last a lifetime. Her: the most commonly featured cover model in Playboy history….
Every Passover, I find that my contributions to the Seder are somewhat limited. My niece and nephew have now been charged with the task of asking the four questions and my mother’s food preparations are almost sacred unto themselves. This year, though, I’ve been tasked with the delightful job of considering literary readings that are…
“EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE AND WONDERFUL” By Stephanie Wittels Wach Sourcebooks, 288 pages, $25.99 Death in general is sad — this we all know to be true. The death of a loved one can be paralyzing. A loss like that cuts so deep that one might justifiably wonder how those left behind remain standing. And for…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. A unique Yiddish immersion program in Paris has begun its second semester. Its students, graduate students and postgraduates, praise it wholeheartedly. At the new Paris Yiddish Center’s program for intermediate and advanced students, each participant receives 15 hours of instruction in language and literature each week. They…
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