If he’s getting bored under house arrest, accused sex offender Dominique Strauss-Kahn can at least look forward to receiving some Hebrew-language reading material. The former head of the International Monetary Fund, who pleaded not guilty yesterday to sexually assaulting a maid in a New York City hotel, was the intended recipient of a package of…
Like a number of young American Jews involved in the “food movement,” a group of about 10 people will gather this summer at an organic farm. They’ll harvest the farm’s bounty, participate in cooking classes, study Jewish texts and form an intentional community. But this group will do it all in Yiddish. The program called…
Lévana Kirschenbaum is the author of the forthcoming “The Whole Foods Kosher Kitchen: Glorious Meals Pure and Simple” (June 22). Her blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: I came…
The Moby Awards are everything that your typical awards ceremony is not: irreverent, un-manicured, efficient, spare, and the best part? Everyone is invited. Whimsically invented to honor the best and worst book trailers — video previews that publishers use to promote their acquisitions — it’s the kind of event that doesn’t necessarily compel its presenters…
Not this again. After the success of “Bridesmaids” seemed to finally sound the death knell for the whole “women can’t be as funny as men” canard, we’re right back to hearing “women can’t write like men.” The culprit this time? Acclaimed novelist V.S. Naipaul, who dissed all women writers, and said none were his match….
On Tuesday, Haley Tanner wrote about her mother’s blessing. Her blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: Years ago my family decided to take our celebration of [Rosh Hashanah](https://forward.com/schmooze/320610/rosh-hashana/ “Rosh…
Americans often hear about Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the U.S.-Israel relationship. We read Israeli authors in translation, buy Israeli products, and anyone within driving distance of a JCC can hear an Israeli speak on a nearly weekly basis. What we don’t often hear are Palestinians. This is, I believe, understandable — particularly for the…
Haley Tanner‘s debut novel, “Vaclav and Lena,” is now available. She will be blogging all week for the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning‘s Author Blog. Her blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information…
The prolific literary translator Joachim Neugroschel died on May 23 in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was 73. Neugroschel translated more than 200 books from Yiddish, French, German, Russia and Italian, including the work of Nobel Prize-winner Elias Canetti. His legal guardian and former partner, Aaron Mack Schloff, confirmed Neugroschel’s death. The son of the Yiddish Galician…
Earlier this week, C. Alexander London wrote about being an accidental adventurer and sequels and the Torah. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: In honor of the end…
JEWISH BIALYSTOK AND ITS DIASPORA By Rebecca Kobrin Indiana University Press, 380 pages, $24.95 GERMAN CITY, JEWISH MEMORY: THE STORY OF WORMS By Nils Roemer Brandeis University Press, 328 pages, $35 A vast, heartbreaking and, to English readers, inaccessible Yiddish and Hebrew library — of some 1,000 volumes, studded with unique memoirs and rare photographs…
