A Jewish Academia Novel Set in 1960 Still Resonates
I started reading academia novels in the 1960s with Edward Albee’s tempestuous boozy Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, then the jocular Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, a hoot, a romp, filled with junior faculty insecurities.
My radar sought...
The Pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-19
Between 1918 and 1921 an estimated 100,000 Jewish people were killed, maimed or tortured in pogroms in Ukraine. Hundreds of Jewish communities were burned to the ground and hundreds of thousands of people were...
‘Mufti’ Will Satisfy Neither Historians nor Graphic Arts Fans
Mufti: The True Story of the Man who Collaborated with Hitler and the Nazis to Create the Evil Legacy of Modern Jihad by John Hawkins; independently published; © 2024; ISBN 9798339-692140; 143 pages; $29.99 on...
“Vu di velt hot nor an ek” (Through an Endless Stretch of Land), by...
"Vu di velt hot nor an ek" (Through an Endless Stretch of Land), by Kadya Molodowsky. Children's poems in Yiddish and English.
Yaira Singer has collected, translated, and illustrated her favorite children's poems by legendary...
Belonging: The Story of the Jews, 1492-1900. By Simon Schama
“SOMETIME, somewhere, between Africa and Hindustan, lay a river so Jewish it observed the Sabbath.” “Belonging”, the second volume of Simon Schama’s story of the Jews, begins with this pious waterway, and continues with...
How Vilna’s Jews Rescued Their Books From the Nazis
For hundreds of years, books played a powerful role in the lives of Vilna’s Jews.
The city was home to the two most influential publishing houses of religious and secular books, Romm and B. Kletskin,...
Escape by marriage: how some fled the Nazis
Persecuted. Engaged. Married. Marriages of convenience in exile by Sabine Bergler and Irene Messinger, Jewish Museum Vienna, 2018, 147 pages
We marry for love, romance, money, and to procreate and extend family lineages. Marriages of convenience...
Two children’s books for Jewish holidays
Author Sandra Feder notes that Judaism acknowledges a duality in life: with the bitter often will come the sweet, and vice versa. “Sweet wine or grape juice is used to welcome Shabbat on Friday...
Two books to read this summer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyL7zSGrI4o
The Jewish Century, Yuri Slezkine
The Jewish Paradox, Nahum Goldmann
You wouldn't believe it, but walking into a yogurt store I found this book, And as an art of miracle, I have to suggest...
Book review: The Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews: A Memoir
https://youtu.be/O6mV9DCIvyY
A heartbreaking story of a young Hasidic woman who escapes her community at 16.
Purchase the book here
Transcript:
Normally we wouldn't have recommended it because of the title, but then we started reading it and we...