Some urban areas can inspire literary careers. Lizzie Doron, born in Tel Aviv in 1953, was raised in that city’s Bitzaron neighborhood, where traumatized Holocaust survivors lived in a “kind of refugee camp,” speaking a macaronic blend of languages in which Yiddish featured prominently. When at age six, Lizzie and her friends were sent to…
It’s celebrities versus politicians in Israel. If the latest petition to be signed in Israel ever went up for auction, it would sell for millions of shekels, because it bears the names of some of the most famous Israelis alive: writers Amos Oz, David Grossman and A.B. Yehoshua, singer Yehudit Ravitz and actors Hanna Maron…
Scenes From Village Life By Amos Oz Translated by Nicholas de Lange Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 182 pages, $22 If Franz Kafka were a happily married, 70-year-old Israeli family man, he wouldn’t be Franz Kafka. He also wouldn’t be Amos Oz. He might, however, have written something quite like Amos Oz’s new book of connected stories,…
Courtesy of Yonathan & Masha Films Yonathan and Masha Zur’s recent documentary “Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams,” screening May 17 at the New York Israel Film Festival, expertly circles around the question: What is the place of politics in literature, and vice versa? For Oz, the two cannot be disentangled. “To write what they…
Following “New York, I Love You” and “Paris, I Love You,” Israel’s capital has been tapped to serve as the third city in the star-studded film series. Assuming it follows the model of the previous films, “Jerusalem, I Love You” will tell a dozen short love stories written, starring and directed by major names in…
In celebration of Jewish Book Month, The Arty Semite is partnering with the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA) and the Jewish Book Council to present “30 Days, 30 Texts,” a series of reflections by community leaders on the books that influenced their Jewish journeys. Today, Elise Bernhardt writes about “A Tale of Love…
Some writers slow down with age. Their books take longer to appear, their delivery live is more halting, their stories are repetitive, confusing or meandering. Not so Amos Oz. Over the past three decades that I’ve seen him, his calm but forceful delivery has become more fluent, more persuasive and, indeed, wiser. On Tuesday morning,…
In recent days, I’ve spent way too much time geeking out on C-SPAN’s video library, which was recently put online in its entirety. The virtual library, home to 160,000 hours of video, is a treasure trove — not to mention a great procrastination vehicle — for political junkies of all stripes. And there’s plenty for…
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