17 Dec
Arts & Culture, Culture, Latest, Religion

People of the Book: Not Asking or Telling

  Times are hard for those who want to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.   "Major setback for 'don't ask' repeal," blared a headline last week on the front page of The Washington Post.  "The Senate Stands for Injustice," announced an editorial in The New York Times.  After a military policy bill stalled in the Senate last week, it seems the odds of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell before the year is over are slim.  The Senate is revisiting the issue this weekend in a vote that may decide, in one direction or another, the future of the 17-year-old policy. The core of Don't Ask, Don't Tell–the idea that there are pieces of ourselves we must hide, that a part of one's identity might be inherently threatening and problematic–is not limited to the military.   Andre Aciman's 2007...

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04 Dec
Culture, Latest, Religion

An Interview with Peter Manseau, Author of Songs for the Butcher's Daughter

By Jeremy Gillick “Rise and go to the town of the killings,” Bialik wrote of Kishinev, the Moldovan city, formerly Russian, where a 1903 Easter Sunday blood libel famously escalated into a brutal three-day pogrom. A momentous event, the pogrom both expedited the Jewish exodus from Eastern Europe and helped usher Zionism into the 20th century. “Your feet will sink in feathers,” wrote Bialik forebodingly. “Half the buds will be feathers, and their smell the smell of blood.” This image of blood and feathers in the heart of the Yiddish-speaking world is the backdrop of Peter Manseau’s new novel, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter. As the Kishinev pogrom begins and feathers flutter from Jewish windows, Itsik Malpesh, destined to become the last great Yiddish writer, is born. Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter tells his story, from his...

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