Anna Isaacs
“I wanted readers to see and feel what it was like to be a child subjected to intensive bombing,” writes Marione Ingram, who as a child survived the Allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany, in 1943.
Anna Isaacs
The symbolism of holding an international Jewish sporting event at Berlin’s Olympic Park—built by the National Socialists for the 1936 Olympics, from which Jewish athletes were excluded—was lost on no one.
Anna Isaacs
Two years ago Jake Witzenfeld, a new Jewish Tel Aviv transplant from England, discovered Qambuta Productions—a fresh, subversive and artistic Palestinian voice on YouTube that uses parody to illustrate social and political issues in the Arab community.
Moment
As Hurricane Irene descended on New York City in 2011, acclaimed poet Edward Hirsch received a text message from his only son Gabriel that he would be home in an hour. That was the last time he would hear from him.
Nadine Epstein returns to a changed city.
navid
Many writers seem daunted by the autobiographical novel—ashamed to write of themselves, as if that were either self-indulgence or exploitation. And of course with James Joyce and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a paragon, many do not even dare to try. But Joyce didn’t frighten off E.L. Doctorow, who mined his own Depression-era childhood in New York for the 1986 National Book Award-winning World’s Fair.
Sala Levin
Prison reform is having a legislative moment — a step in the right direction, Jewish organizations say.
Moment
In this probing, lavishly illustrated volume, the historian of American Jewry, Jonathan Sarna, and Benjamin Shapell, a leading collector of Civil War documents and artifacts, interweave two texts: a chronicle of Lincoln’s cordial relations with Jews and an extensive gallery of letters, photos and prints.
Moment
In November 1938, as Hitler was preaching his gospel of hate, French Prime Minister Léon Blum delivered a speech to the International League Against Anti-Semitism about “the tragic Jewish question.” Urging European nations to open their doors to the growing number of Jewish refugees who had been condemned “to a bitter and unfortunate fate,” he left no doubt about his identity…
Moment
The recently published posthumous publication, The Pawnbroker’s Daughter: A Memoir, draws attention to the powers of endurance of the American Jewish poet Maxine Kumin (1925-2014). The Yiddish word for strength, koyach, might have been the middle name of Kumin, a skilled swimmer and horsewoman who battled back after a near-fatal carriage-driving accident at age 73
Anna Isaacs
“I think that it has much more positive to offer than negative,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “But we have to keep a careful eye.”
Sala Levin
