This is the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
The Latest
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Books ‘Perfidious Albion’
Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England By Anthony Julius Oxford University Press, 864 pages, $45 A monumental study of English antisemitism proves an astonishing and controversial achievement. If nothing else, “Trials of the Diaspora” is an extraordinary testament to the brilliance of its author. That Anthony Julius, a top London lawyer…
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Books A 21st-Century Schlemiel
The Ask By Sam Lipsyte Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 304 pages, $25 He is the anti-hero of the American Jewish novel: bright, only not bright enough; more dreamy than driven, and possessed by insatiable, often misappropriated desires. He does not see himself as beholden to his Jewishness, but neither can he escape it. He was…
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Books A Gangster Grows in Brooklyn
Somehow I missed this when it appeared in November, but Purim seems as good a time as any to catch up on a book whose title character (sort of) is named “Shushan Cats.” “The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats” is a novel by Hesh Kestin (previously the European bureau chief for Forbes), which takes place…
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Books A Graphic Account of the Israeli Countryside
The past year has seen a bumper crop of Jewish-themed graphic novels, with subjects ranging from the recent history of the Middle East (Joe Sacco’s “Footnotes in Gaza”) to the ancient mythology of the Middle East (R. Crumb’s “Genesis”) to the poets of the Beat Generation (Harvey Pekar and Ed Piskor’s “The Beats”). Still, the…
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Books Cyril Kornbluth’s Postwar Dystopias
Readers of the intelligently edited anthologies “Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy & Science Fiction” and “More Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction,” both from Jewish Lights Publishing, are aware that the postwar development of the sci-fi genre was to a large extent a Yiddishe invention. Alongside…
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Books Jewish Impostors, Past and Present
Although Shabbetai Zevi naturally gets most of the attention, Jewish history has been marked by a series of impostors. On February 16, Bloomsbury USA publishes a collection by the late New Yorker reporter St. Clair McKelway, “Reporting at Wit’s End,” which includes the complete 1968 book “The Big Little Man from Brooklyn” about the Jewish…
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Books An Arabic Bestseller About Beirut’s Jews
A new book, documenting Lebanon’s largely vanished Jewish community is a bestseller — in Arabic. In fact, “Wad Abu Jamil,” a book by BBC journalist Nada Abdelsamad named after the formerly Jewish neighborhood in Beirut, is available only in Arabic, though translations into English and French are forthcoming. According to Alexandra Sandels of the LA…
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Books And Dylan Saw That It Was Good
Children’s books written by celebrities are pretty conventional these days. So it’s strange that Bob Dylan — who’s gotten nothing if not weirder over the past few years — is publishing one. But in reality, Dylan’s latest children’s book was already written, back in 1979. According a recent press release, “Man Gave Names to All…
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News What We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Childhood
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News Antisemitism group keeps board member who emailed Epstein on the legality of transporting minors for sex
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Politics AIPAC fails its first test in the midterms
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Fast Forward Mamdani appoints Phylisa Wisdom, progressive Jewish leader, to run Office to Combat Antisemitism
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish אַ קורס וועגן די שפּריכווערטער געזאַמלט דורך די אַנ־סקי עקספּעדיציעסA course on the Yiddish proverbs collected through the An-Ski expeditions
די ווערטלעך האָט פֿאַרשריבן דער סאָוועטישער פֿאָלקלאָריסט אַבא לעוו בעת די עקספּעדיציעס איבער וואָלין
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Opinion In Trump’s instinct to punish and desecrate, a rejection of the values of King David
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Culture Why Bad Bunny’s halftime show delighted New York Jews of a certain age
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Yiddish World Elie Wiesel as an American phenomenon and a family man
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