I cannot recall reading any book about Jewish history that contains so many “Aha!” moments.
Hebrew
Book Review: A. B. Yehoshua’s “The Extra” — A Genius for Dissecting Family Matters
This canny writer is concerned with the kind of complicated family relationships that engaged his Jewish literary forebears.
Theater Review: “The Strawberry Girl” — Harvest of Horror
Israeli Stage has opened its sixth season, which is dedicated exclusively to female playwrights, with a haunting work that examines the complicity of an ordinary German in the Holocaust.
Fuse Book Review: “The Book of Beginnings” — Vive les indifférences!
This study is an attempt to “enter” a foreign way of thought and to study the “possibilities” and, by extension, “potential mindsets” of the human mind.
Book Review: “Second Person Singular”—A Powerful Look at Israel’s Tangled Issues of Identity
In his novel, Sayed Kashua paints such a vivid picture of modern Jerusalem that I found myself longing to see that city again; he also portrays a whole spectrum of Arab life in Israel — from the poor families visited by the social workers to the ambitious Arab mothers and their sometimes feckless sons — with empathy and humor.
Fuse Books: A Few Year End Literary Favorites
As the year nears its end, time is running out to write at length about some of the new books that gave me pleasure. Thus this quick list of favorites. As usual, my taste runs to prose that’s off-the-beaten-path.
Fuse Book Review: A Fascinating Meditation on Jewish Maps of Time
“Palaces of Time” is a exquisitely illustrated, elegantly written account of the history of Jewish calendars in early modern Europe, as well as a meditation on what they represented — profound reflections of the Jewish experience as it passed through time.