american jewish lit

American Jewish Literature: Dead or Alive?

With Gal Beckerman /  Nicholas Delbanco / Nathan Englander /  Rebecca Goldstein / Allegra Goodman / Mohsin Hamid / Dara Horn / Aaron Lansky / Ruby Namdar / Alicia Ostriker / Robert Pinsky / Jane Yolen As Moment’s culture editor, whether I am speaking with publishers, authors, scholars or people I meet during Shabbat morning kiddush, sooner or later I am inevitably asked the same question: Are great American Jewish books still being written? Despite the popularity of the question, it is out of date. In just the last decade, there has been a revolution in what constitutes a Jewish text. Many of the best and most powerful Jewish “books” now come in the form of films, TV shows, podcasts, graphic novels and, some might even argue, tweets. Absent the constraints of the bound written page, these Jewish “books” allow previously unheard...

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