This is the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
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Books A.B. Yehoshua Speaks His Mind at the New York Public Library
A.B. Yehoshua’s new novel was inspired by a painting of a woman breast-feeding her father. The 74-year-old literary luminary, who has published some 15 books, does not retreat from the provocative or the perverse. Yehoshua calls “Spanish Charity” a probing of the creative process, and Haaretz saw it as a retrospective of the author’s own…
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Books New Life for the American Jewish Year Book?
“It’s a shanda (outrage)!” exclaimed Bruce A. Phillips of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles Campus. He was reacting to the cessation of the American Jewish Year Book after a successful run of more than a century by the American Jewish Committee. The Yearbook — a handy compendium of demographic and historical trends,…
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Books The Last Great Yiddish Modernist Poet
The Yiddish poet Yirmiye (Jeremiah) Hesheles died on October 16, 2010. When he celebrated his 100th birthday a group of dedicated Yiddishists, myself included, celebrated the occasion by paying him a visit at the New York State Veterans Home in St. Albans, Queens. A herd of geese, as if out of an Eastern European legend,…
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Books Choosing ‘The Chosen,’ on Stage and Screen
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree There aren’t too many novels that can lay claim to a second, much less a third, lease on life as both a film and a play, especially when the subject at hand has to do with religion and faith. But “The Chosen,” Chaim Potok’s novel of Orthodox Jewish life…
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Books A Girl Who Slays Dragons, but Stops for Shabbat
Mirka Hershberg is a normal 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. She attends school, polishes the candlesticks for Shabbat, does her homework, gives tzedakah, fights trolls and dreams of slaying dragons. Well, maybe not your typical 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. Written by illustrator Barry Deutsch, “Hereville” is the story of Mirka’s quest for a dragon-slaying sword. Originally…
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Books Esther vs. Vashti, Austen vs. Brontës
As I prepared for the beginning of the perennial Purim question of “Esther vs. Vashti” at the same time as I delved into Jane Eyre-mania, I began to think about how women are always pushed into dichotomies. I wondered cynically how soon someone would write about the new Brontë films by declaring Jane Austen passé….
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Books Turkish Coffee for the Crown Prince
Earlier this week, Reyna Simnegar, the author of “Persian Food from the Non-persian Bride: And Other Sephardic Kosher Recipes You Will Love,” wrote about Miss Venezela Material and Sephardim Strike Back! 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…
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Books Why Are the Brits So Into Nazi-Themed Books?
In 1975, UK author Alan Coren published a humorous collection of essays called “Golfing for Cats” — and emblazoned the cover with a huge swastika. He had noticed the most popular titles in Britain were about cats, golf and Nazis. Thirty-six years later, notes the BBC this week, “Nazi books are going stronger than ever….
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Culture I come from a long line of Jewish Bundists. Now, Molly Crabapple is part of our family.
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Yiddish װאָס קען מען זיך אָפּלערנען פֿון מאָלי קראַבעפּלס בוך װעגן „בונד“?What can we learn from Molly Crabapple’s book about the Bund?
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