Monday, March 25, 2013

Jewish Book Club


The National Jewish Book Awards host America’s most lucrative literary prize

By Jessica Weisberg

JewishBookAwardsThe winner of the Sami Rohr Literary Prize—which, at $100,000, is one of the most generous literary awards in the world—won’t be announced until April, but many of the finalists, along with some 150 writers, editors, and publishers, attended the National Jewish Book Awards, held last night at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. Sitting for dinner at what people took to calling the “Rohr Kids Table,” writers, both nominated and not, gossiped nervously about the five finalists: Francesca Segal (The Innocents), Ben Lerner (Leaving the Atocha Station), Stuart Nadler (The Book of Life), Shani Boianjiu (The People Forever Are Not Afraid), and Asaf Shurr (Motti). “If you don’t hear by 10 a.m., you didn’t get it,” said Allison Amend, a novelist and Rohr finalist in 2011, to Boianjiu, who was visiting New York from Israel.

The Rohr Prize is intended for an emerging writer of Jewish literature—but the way the award defines “Jewish literature” is somewhat vague. “We look for books written with a Jewish pen and Jewish eyes, that have a kernel of Jewish content,” said Carolyn Starman Hessel, the director of the Jewish Book Council, which hosts the awards. “Strong feelings of Jewish identity now might change the writers’ focus in the future.” There are no submissions; finalists are nominated by a panel of judges. “Otherwise, I’d have to rent out the Empire State Building,” to house all the eager entries, Hessel said.

All of the council’s other awards are submission-based and define Jewish literature in a more straightforward way, recognizing books about Jewish people and history; there are categories like “Education and Jewish Identity” and “Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice.” In 1992, when Hessel became director of the National Jewish Book Council, awards for books written in Hebrew and Yiddish were given on the basis of more traditional categories, such as “Children’s Picture Book,” and “Israel.”

Continue reading. 

Monday, March 18, 2013

New haggadahs: Edgar Bronfman’s and an interactive version for kids

BOSTON (JTA) -- Francine Hermelin Levite and Edgar Bronfman have been using unique versions of the Passover Haggadah for years. Now both have decided to publish their versions of the Exodus story. 

Hermelin Levite, 43, the mother of three school-aged children, is the author of “My Haggadah: Made it Myself,” an interactive version for children of the ritual-laden book that is now available on Amazon.

Bronfman, 84, the business giant and Jewish philanthropist, offers “The Bronfman Haggadah” (Rizzoli) illustrated by his wife, the artist Jan Aronson.

Hermelin Levite's journey to publishing a Haggadah began about eight or nine years ago when she joined some unaffiliated young Jewish families living in lower Manhattan who were banding to create a Passover celebration. Growing up in Detroit, Hermelin Levite says she enjoyed lively and inspirational seders led by her father, who followed the traditional haggadah embellished by music he composed and other innovations. But she knew it was not a universal experience.

Hermelin Levite, a one-time journalist, educational software developer and graphic designer, volunteered to compile the haggadah. She said it had to resonate with kids and families of multiple backgrounds.

She also was motivated by the needs of her young son, who has severe food allergies to nuts, chicken and wheat.

“He was allergic to the food of Passover,” she recalls thinking and vowed to create a seder in which he could participate.

Hermelin Levite recognized that children communicate in various ways.

“The book is designed to invite artistic expression ranging from simple stickers to more complex collage and discussion,” she said, adding that her husband, also a graphic designer, helped with the images.

Over the years, her do-it-yourself, hands-on haggadah has become popular through word of mouth. Last year she decided to self publish and was amazed with the number of orders from far-flung locales such as Budapest and Hong Kong.

This year, with a grant from Reboot, a nonprofit that supports innovative projects to engage young, unaffiliated Jews, Hermelin Levite is traveling across the country introducing the haggadah to new audiences. The spiral-bound haggadah will appeal to kids with all levels of knowledge of Jewish observance.

To illustrate the passage of the four children -- the wise, wicked, simple and silent -- the haggadah offers four blank faces in which kids are asked to draw the personalities of guests at their seder. Blessings are written in Hebrew with English transliteration.

In retelling the Exodus story, children are presented with an empty suitcase and asked to think about what they would take if they had to leave in a hurry. Hermelin Levite hopes the provocative questions spark conversation.

She credits her Jewish education and a family that fostered a love of Jewish experience with the inspiration for creating the haggadah.

“I used to think I was an accidental children's book author,” Hermelin Levite wrote to JTA in an email. “But given my upbringing, professional path and journey raising my kids, [writing the haggadah] seems to make the perfect sense.”

Bronfman, too, has fond memories of his childhood seders as joyful gatherings of family, but says they were uninteresting, uninformative and rote. Over his lifetime, dissatisfied with the available haggadahs, he has cut and pasted passages from various versions to create more engaging seders in his own home. A few years ago he decided to create his own haggadah.

“I wanted to get all the words right,” he said.

The popularity of Passover offers a unique opportunity, he tells JTA.

“We have a chance to teach young people what Judaism is about,” Bronfman said.

Children's author Eric Kimmel, the author of “Wonders and Miracles,” a Passover companion filled with art that in 2004 won a National Jewish Book award, applauds that spirit.

“If the traditional version doesn't work for you, come up with something else,” he advocates, with a nod to the tradition but also with a dose of disrespect, he adds with a laugh. “What's important is to follow the biblical injunction to tell your children the story of Passover.”

“The Bronfman Haggadah” is written entirely in English -- Bronfman quips it's to appeal to most American Jews, who do not know Hebrew. The reading takes about an hour-and-a-half. Unlike the traditional haggadah, Bronfman includes Moses, who he holds as a role model of a leader who asks questions and disrupts the status quo. But all the characters of the Exodus, including God, are represented as metaphor and not historical facts, he writes.

Welcoming Elijah the prophet earlier in the seder underscores the Jewish value of welcoming in strangers, Bronfman says.

New words to the popular song "Dayenu" express gratitude for establishing a homeland in Israel. Bronfman ends the seder with a call for spiritual peace in Jerusalem among Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, and all warring peoples.

Notably, Bronfman expands the narrative of the traditional haggadah to include the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. While the foundation of Jewish law is the theme of Shavuot, he acknowledges that most Jews are unaware of the holiday that follows Passover.

“Freedom doesn't mean anything without the responsibility of law,” Bronfman tells JTA. “To be free is a privilege we too often take for granted.”

Aronson, who has fond memories of Passover seders growing up in New Orleans, spent nearly a year working on the illustrations for the "Bronfman Haggadah," determined to avoid cliched images. To keep the images fresh -- and to entertain youngsters -- she changes up the artistic styles from one page to another -- some are realistic, others abstract or geometric -- and also varies the mood and colors. A biblical map of the Exodus depicts the possible routes traveled by the Israelites.

For the Ten Plagues, Aronson draws a large singing insect that will capture the attention of children. Miriam's tambourine is vibrantly colored with long flowing ribbons that complement the joy described in the narrative as the Israelites escape bondage.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Data: A Love Story

Amy Webb, in-demand internet consultant and math whiz had experienced one too many disastrous JDates.

After one particularly awful one—on which the guy started taking phone calls from his wife—Webb went home, settled down with a bottle of wine, and began creating order out of online dating chaos.

First she created a series of male JDate profiles so she could scope out her competition. Then she gave her own profile a makeover so she appeared as easygoing and unintimidating (not to mention skin-bearing) as the top-ranking women. She found herself besieged with suitors.

Webb refused to even consider going on a date with anyone who didn't pass a threshold qualifying score on her list of non-negotiables. And it turns out she was on to something; her next first date was her last one. Webb found love, settled down, and wrote the just-released book Data: A Love Story. In addition to some very practical tips for online dating, Data offers a quirky tale of self-actualization and romance, and some words of wisdom about putting your best face—or other body part—forward and refusing to compromise when it comes to love.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Unterzakhn


In the beginning, there was the Lower East Side – the place where it all began for hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews. Crowded, dirty, poor. Home to more hopes and tragedies than should ever be squeezed into two square miles.

Author-artist Leela Corman perfectly captures the tumult and heartbreak of the neighborhood circa 1910 in her graphic novel Unterzakhn (Yiddish for "underthings"). It’s the story of twin sisters growing up in relentless poverty with an overbearing mother, and whose lives take dramatically different paths. Death stalks nearly every page – death by horse cart, by botched abortion, by Cossacks (in a flashback). If tragedy isn't your thing, you might not love this one – but if amazing illustrations are, you will.

"Pictures are central," Corman said in an interview. "I'm a visual artist, not a novelist." The book is chock full of indelible images of a time long past: Laundry hanging on the clothesline between tenements. Packed-earth streets crowded with pushcarts. Salesmen hawking herring and apples. Newsboys shouting at passersby. Burlesque girls and whorehouse madams.

We've seen the Lower East Side in movies, but seldom in such gritty detail, in a setting that will resonate with every American who traces their lineage through the Lower East Side.