Marcel Proust is famous for transforming an evocative sensory experience into literary brilliance
A 1904 wedding film just might contain the only known footage of Marcel Proust, author of “In Search of Lost Time.”
This was the year of Marcel Proust in the literary world. But was the fin-de-siecle French writer Jewish or a Jew-hater — or both?
A new exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of the publication of Marcel Proust?s ?Swann?s Way.? What is behind our generation?s obsession with centenaries?
Jewish childhood experiences can determine a lifetime, as a recent heartfelt memoir, “In Your Hands: a Surgeon Traverses the Century,” published on October 20 by Les éditions France-Empire, demonstrates.
Enthused readers of the German Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin are impatiently awaiting the announced May 9 publication date of a landmark translation of Benjamin’s “Early Writings” from Harvard University Press. Until then, readers afflicted with Benjamania can delight in a catalog published by the Kunstmuseum Solingen in Germany, “Stellar Immortality” (Die Unsterblichkeit der Sterne, to accompany an exhibit on display at the end of 2010.
Earlier this week, Michael David Lukas shared a list of his top ten favorite Jews of all time and his connection to Nomi Stone. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog series. For more information on the series, please visit:
Edmund de Waal, a British artist and the son of a clergyman of the Church of England, knew he was missing a vital part of himself, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A middle-aged married father of three, he had spent his adult life ensconced in his London studio, where he made thousands of porcelain pots in various shades of white, some of them lidded and others not, many of them marred by imperfections of one sort or another. His work was melancholy, and emanated an energy both compelling and disturbing. Perhaps de Waal was simply trying to make sense of an ancient tragedy that was part of his heritage. Regardless, a better understanding of himself was part of his mission.
Even in France, where screen performers like Fernandel and Michel Simon exulted in their ugliness, the Jewish actor Daniel Emilfork (born Daniel Emilfork Berenstein in Chile; 1924-2006) remains unique.
For visitors to the New York Jewish Film Festival, a must-see on January 18-20 is a new hour-length documentary, “Leon Blum: For All Mankind” about the French socialist politician.