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 Jewish Book Council Names Sami Rohr Prize Finalists
The Jewish Book Council has named the five finalists of this year’s Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the Forward has learned. Carolyn Hessel, director of the Jewish Book Council, told the Forward that the five finalists are Sarah Bunin Benor for “Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism”; Matti…
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Books Firestorm Over Canada’s ‘Guys Only’ Prof
If you’ve been anywhere near a Canadian newspaper or news website in the last week, then you’ll know that a scandal involving author and English professor David Gilmour has been dominating the headlines. The dustup is in response to remarks Gilmour made discounting Canadian, women and minority writers. I asked some Canadian Jewish writers and…
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Books How Do You Solve a Problem Like Chani Kaufmann?
Chani and Baruch are about to get married. In her heavy, layered dress, the sweat drips down the hollow of her back and collects in pools under her arms. She has never been kissed, never held a boy’s hand. As for Baruch, such is his panic that he cannot even remember Chani’s face, though they…
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Books Ryan Braun Yanked from ‘Jewish Sports Stars’ Cover
If you’re Jewish, and a sports star, you probably have an assured spot in David J. Goldman’s “Jewish Sports Stars: Past and Present.” But if you’re found to be violating Major League Baseball’s enhancing drug policy, you might not make the cover. So it goes for Ryan Braun, the disgraced slugger who was suspended for…
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Books German Literary Critic and Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Dies at 93
Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Germany’s best-known literary critic and a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, died on Wednesday aged 93, his publisher said. Reich-Ranicki, a Jew born in Poland in 1920, almost perished at the Nazis’ hands in World War Two but went on to become one of the leading advocates of German literature and culture during…
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Books Malamud’s ‘Refugee’ at 50
A version of this post originally appeared on Ron Hogan’s Beatrice blog. I owe my discovery of Bernard Malamud’s “The German Refugee” — published 50 years ago Saturday — to “The Best American Short Stories of the Century,” which joined my bookshelf shortly after its release. And although I don’t normally use the word “frisson”…
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Books How Nicholas Sparks Came To Write His First Jewish Characters
‘I sometimes think to myself that I’m the last of my kind.” And thus begins “The Longest Ride,” Nicholas Sparks’s latest novel. Sparks has written seventeen novels, eight of which have already made it to the silver screen. What makes this Nicholas Sparks novel different from all other Nicholas Sparks novels? Well, the speaker continues:…
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Books Fall Brings a Rich Harvest of Books
A bounty of Jewish and Israeli-themed books awaits readers this fall, with choices ranging from the gently nostalgic to the deeply disturbing. In both fiction and nonfiction, the past is very much present. Much of the fiction draws heavily on history (“A Guide for the Perplexed,” “Dissident Gardens,” “The Lion Seeker”) or autobiography (“Between Friends”)….
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Fast Forward CA Gov. Newsom says he regrets apartheid comment, ‘reveres’ Israel in new interview
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Holy Ground The promised land is… Oklahoma? Inside Tulsa’s campaign to court young Jews
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Looking Forward We need to talk about New Jersey’s Jewish master of literature. No, not that one
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