The Plunder of Jewish Books

From the YiddishBookCenter.org

Aaron Lansky visits with Mark Glickman, author of the upcoming "Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books." Glickman shares the story of how the world's largest collection of Jewish books - some tens of millions - were looted by Nazi soldiers and others who removed them from private collections, libraries, and institutions.

Episode 101, May, 2015

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The Sun And Fun Capital Of The World?

Miami Beach in 1972 is the backdrop for Thane Rosenbaum’s antic new Holocaust novel.

Diane Cole; Special To The Jewish Week

In his new novel, “How Sweet It Is!” (Mandel Vilar Press), Thane Rosenbaum rolls back the clock to 1972 and transports us to the less-than-sweet, unglamorous side of Miami Beach. Here, as in his previous works of fiction, Rosenbaum strives to balance moral seriousness with outrageous antic humor as he tries to make sense of what can never make sense: the Holocaust.

As in the musical “Cabaret,” there is a gregarious master of ceremonies at the center of the passing show. Here it is the entertainer Jackie Gleason, serving as our guide to the quirky characters who populate the town he highlighted on his weekly variety show in the 1960s. But by the time we meet him, he’s already in decline, a depressed and lonely clown bemoaning the loss of his former prestige. Instead of hosting a must-watch television variety show, he holds court as a patient at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

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FIG TREE BOOKS LLC ANNOUNCES FALL 2015 LIST

Fig Tree Books sources, publishes, and promotes high quality, commercially viable novels that chronicle and enlighten the unique American Jewish Experience (AJE).  We do this in three ways:  (1) by selecting new voices that have not had the opportunity to publish fiction previously in this genre; (2) by working with authors who have previously published novels, novellas and/or short stories; and (3) by re-publishing works that have been out of print or never been available as an e-book.

Fig Tree Books, a new publishing house focusing on literary fiction exploring the diverse American Jewish experience, announced its list for the fall 2015 season. The two books include THE SEA BEACH LINE, a novel by Ben Nadler (October) and a new edition of THE PAWNBROKER by Edward Lewis Wallant (November), featuring a foreword by acclaimed novelist Dara Horn.

Originally published in 1961, THE PAWNBROKER was one of the first American novels to depict the lingering trauma of the Holocaust. It takes place in Harlem, where protagonist Sol Nazerman runs a pawnshop about 15 years after his liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Remarkable for its attempts to dramatize the aftereffects of the Holocaust — dream sequences in Sidney Lumet’s 1964 film version are famous for being the first time the extermination camps were depicted in a Hollywood movie

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About THE SEA BEACH LINE

Set in the underworld of post-Giuliani New York City, THE SEA BEACH LINE melds mid-20th century pulp fiction and traditional Jewish folklore as it updates the classic story of a young man trying to find his place in the world.

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Why Literally Everyone in the World Hates the Jews, and What To Do About It

Two new scholarly books show how even the most neutral academic can feel bound to answer anti-Semites’ demonic vigor in kind

By David Mikics for Tablet Magazine

In many parts of the world, Jews are increasingly unwelcome in the 21st century. The number of countries in which wearing visibly Jewish clothing such as a kippa means risking physical violence has hit an all-time high. On both the individual and the national level, Jews are targeted with extraordinary ferocity: We hear Israelis (but no one else) being compared to Nazis; we are told that Jewish nationalism is oppressive and archaic; that Israel is a uniquely racist country; that Israel’s terrible misdeeds explain why people hate Jews. Instead of being seen as ordinary or all too human, Jews are seen as carriers of a uniquely transcendent evil. No other group of people on the planet is accused so much and of such fantastic wrongs. For a few decades after the Holocaust, it seemed that anti-Semitism might wane or even die out. That hope has now been defeated. Could anything we do or say stem the tide, or will Jew-hatred persist as long as there are Jews to hate?

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My Teacher’s Son: A Memoir of Heresy Is Marked By a Father’s Unnerving Piety

In and out of the fold of ultra-Orthodoxy, Shulem Deen and his father Dovid both pursued honest religious feeling

By Shaul Magid for Tablet Magazine

I have a friend who was once summoned to the principal’s office in his son’s Jewish day school. His son apparently had stopped praying during communal morning prayers. He attended the compulsory prayer service but refused to pray. “This is a problem,” began the principal, “prayer is a religious obligation.” “I think you misunderstand my son,” replied my friend. “He is being religious precisely in refusing to pray to a God he doesn’t believe in.”

Many of us unconsciously think we understand faith, or piety, even if we were not taught about it in school or do not live inside it. We are often taught that faith is generally good but too much of it is generally bad. We then choose the degrees to which we separate ourselves while still trying to remain connected to its roots. As the Jewish joke goes, “Everyone to the left of me is a heretic, and everyone to right of me is crazy.” But what if we err in our orientation? What if we modern Jews are a spiritually dis-oriented people?

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Israeli Historian Otto Dov Kulka Tells Auschwitz Story of a Czech Family That Never Existed

Why Holocaust accounts—and their fictions or omissions—can be a threat to the history of a complicated, tragic human reality

By Anna Hájková for Tablet Magazine
In 2013 the Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka published a recollection of his childhood in concentration camps, Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. Historians and general audiences praised the poetic and reflective tone of the book. Deported at 11 years of age from Theresienstadt, Kulka spent a year and half at Auschwitz and is one of the very few children of his age who survived. Quite unlike most other survivors’ accounts, Kulka’s book has little narrative: It is a collage of impressions, dreams, and metaphysical musings about the world of Auschwitz.

Yet this style masks the fundamental omission of a complicated family history, including adultery, bitter divorce, and a paternity suit. In short, what Kulka wrote was a book about a family that never was.

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Wherever You Go: A Novel

By Joan Leegant

Review By: Bonny V. Fetterman for ReformJudaism.org

Politics is front and center in Joan Leegant’s novel about American Jews in Israel—three strangers who arrive with different agendas and whose paths intersect in Jerusalem. Yona Stern has come from New York to make peace with her older sister, Dena Ben-Tzion, who lives on a settlement over the Green Line with her husband and five children. Yona and Dena had quarreled over a personal matter, but the political situation makes Yona feel uneasy from the moment she descends from the bulletproof bus into the community called Givat Baruch. Dena, rigid and self-righteous, does not want a reconciliation and only speaks to Yona through her children.

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