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Visiting Scribe
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February 21st
JBC/Jewcy
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Weekly Book Recommendations
Updates from The ProsenPeople and JBC news
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Zix Zexy Ztories
Curt Leviant
Texas Tech University Press, 2012. 152 pp. $24.95
In Curt Leviant's wry, funny tales of love and desire set in various locales--the deep South, Boston, New York, Italy, Israel--the protagonists are men, women, guys and gals of various backgrounds and ages. Some are teenagers; others are students, writers, salesmen, teachers; there's even a great-grandfather in the mix. We meet Holocaust survivors, a pretty petty thief, a playwright, students on vacation, a Polish gentile woman in love with Jewish history, a non-Jewish Holocaust historian, a book salesman, a Yiddish artist, a synagogue architect, a secretary at Harvard, and other delectable characters.What unites all these disparate people is the universal desire for love and affection--some claw, some snag, others just wait. And some even succeed..
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Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde: A True Story
Rebecca Dana
Amy Einhorn Books, 2013. 288 pp. $25.95
A child who never quite fit in, Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of one day ditching Pittsburgh and moving to New York, her Jerusalem. After graduating from college, she made her way to the city to begin her destiny. For a time, life turned out exactly as she'd planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment, and man. But when it all came crashing down, she found herself catapulted into another world. She moves into Brooklyn's enormous Lubavitch community, and lives with Cosmo, a thirty-year-old Russian rabbi who practices jujitsu on the side.
While Cosmo, disenchanted with Orthodoxy, flirts with leaving the community, Rebecca faces the fact that her religion--the books, magazines, TV shows, and movies that made New York seem like salvation--has also failed her. As she shuttles between the world of religious extremism and the world of secular excess, Rebecca goes on a search for meaning.
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From The ProsenPeople
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This Week: Emerging Writers/Contemporary Literary Landscapes: Fiction
Join the Center for Jewish History for the inaugural program in their new series on contemporary American Jewish writers, highlighting the work of both fiction and non-fiction authors in the long tradition of American Jewish literature. This event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Book Council.
Although I live in California, I don't share the New Age belief that there are no coincidences. I think many things occur by chance.
Sometime back in my childhood, I got the idea that it was "nicer" to say "I'm Jewish" than "I'm a Jew." And preferably, in the mainly Christian suburb of Milwaukee where I grew up, one said it in a sort of mumble.
Book Cover of the Week: Stalin's Barber
What happens when a Jewish barber leaves Albania for a better life in Stalinist Russia and becomes Stalin's personal barber?
A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about the death of Eddie Goldstein, "the last Jewish man of Boyle Heights." Goldstein, who died on January 5 at 79, was born in Boyle Heights and stayed there all his life, becoming a sort of final link with Boyle Heights of the 1920s and 30s, when it was the Jewish neighborhood in L.A.
This week's reviews...
Top 25 Literary Classics About Israel
During the JFNAGA this past November, JBC shared a list of 25 famous literary classics in the areas of Judaism and Zionism with the Israel Forever Foundation.
Yiddish and Me
When I first began studying Yiddish, I felt like I was remembering something I already knew.
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Check back all week for guest blog posts from Dr. Hannah S. Pressman for the Jewish Book Council and MyJewishLearning's Visiting Scribe series!
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Do you have a Jewish-interest book or product? Reach out to the Jewish Book Council audience! For information on advertising opportunities, please click HERE. |
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