David Grossman has won the German Book Trade Peace Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Isaac Bashevis Singer comes to Carbondale, Illinois.

As the music consultant for The Israeli Opera, Idan Raichel has chosen Vieux Farka Touré to open the new season on November 26.

Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize in Literature last week. Watch him speak in 2007 at the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center.

Read an excerpt from “Eden,” the latest novel by Israeli (and “In Treatment”) writer Yael Hedaya.

Julian Schnabel takes a few Polaroids.

Care to live in an apartment building designed by Frank Gehry?

Schmekel is “New York City’s only All-Jewish All-Transgender Polka-Punk band.”

The movie version of Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is casting.

Roman Polanski is back on the scene in Paris.

Lee Friedlander photographs Philip Roth.

George Price was a “Jewish half-breed” who worked on the Manhattan project, helped develop radiation therapy, and contributed heavily to evolutionary biology before “[abandoning] his career in a mission to shelter and comfort homeless alcoholics.”

Yiddish is back (again).

Robert Alter’s translations of “The Wisdom Books,” reviewed.

British Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson, interviewed.

And last but not least, “Persian Israeli Accordionist Stars in Heartwarming Craigslist TV Accordion Idol Story.”