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Singer's Typewriter and Mine: Reflections on Jewish Culture
Ilan Stavans
University of Nebraska Press, 2012. 368 pp. $24.95

In Singer's Typewriter and Mine, a follow-up to The Inveterate Dreamer (Nebraska, 2001), Stavans interweaves his own experience with that of other Jewish writers and thinkers, past and present, to explore modern Jewish culture across the boundaries of language and nation. Juxtaposing the personal and the analytical, these essays and conversations take up the oeuvres of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Mario Vargas Llosa, translation and God's language, storytelling as midrash, anti-Semitism in Hispanic America, Yiddish and Sephardic literatures, the connection between humor and terror, impostors as cultural agents, the creators of the King James Bible, and the encounter between Jewish and Latino civilizations, to name but a few of Stavans's topics here. Funny, engaging, and provocative, this collection continues Stavans's project of opening new vistas in our cross-cultural understanding of language, literature, and life.

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service

Michael Bar Zohar and Nissim Mishal

HarperCollins, 2012. 400 pp. $27.99
 

The Mossad is widely recognized today as the best intelligence service in the world. It is also the most enigmatic, shrouded in secrecy. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service unveils the defining and most dangerous operations that have shaped Israel and the world at large from the agency's more than sixty-year history, among them: the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the eradication of Black September, the destruction of the Syrian nuclear facility, and the elimination of key Iranian nuclear scientists.

 

Through intensive research and exclusive interviews with Israeli leaders and Mossad agents, authors Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal re-create these missions in riveting detail, vividly bringing to life the heroic operatives who risked everything in the face of unimaginable danger. In the words of Shimon Peres, president of Israel, this gripping, white-knuckle read "tells what should have been known and isn't-that Israel's hidden force is as formidable as its recognized physical strength."

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 From The ProsenPeople

The 14th Annual Jewish Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference

  

Have you written or illustrated a Jewish children's book that you'd like to have published? Do you have a story idea? Have you already been published, and would like to network with others in your field? This conference is for you!

Jewish Writers' Seminar: Writing for Adult Readers

  

The Jewish Writers' Seminar brings together agents, editors, publicists, published authors, and others for a full day of discussions about Jewish book publishing. Learn strategies and tips, get suggestions, and meet peers!.

 

Seeking Connection

 

If there is one consistent theme in the ongoing discoveries of my family history it is meaningful coincidence.

 

Soon after learning my late grandmother's family lived in Nachlaot, I accepted an invitation for Shabbat dinner from sweet friends, Mottle and Batya Wolfe.
  

  

This week's new reviews...

  

Super Tuesday

  

My Dad and I never watched the Superbowl together. Nor the NBA championships, the World Cup, or the World Series.
 
JBC reviewer Jeff Bogursky talks with the former Ambassador to the EU about Israel, Jewish continuity, and the role being Jewish has played in his career as a public servant.
Check back all week for guest blog posts from Haim Watzman and Gerald Sorin for the Jewish Book Council and MyJewishLearning's Visiting Scribe series! 
 
To read these posts and more, please visit The ProsenPeople.
 
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