Women in Black by Hedy Epstein
Every second Tuesday of the month, we hold a vigil of Women in Black in University City. Usually, these are uneventful. People may support us, some take our flyers and say thank you, others refuse…
Category: Jewish Tradition
Share the Wealth with Bob Suberi: A Delegation to Palestine
Growing up as a Labor Zionist in the 50’s and 60’s instilled a sense of community and pride in being a Jew. Although I grew up in a predominately white Christian suburb of Los Angeles,…
There is Nothing Jewish That Is Alien to Me
Gershom Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays Schocken, 1976 Recently I’ve read works that deal with Jews and Judaism in crisis—those in the Yiddish-speaking world in the first half of the twentieth…
“What Will Become of Yiddish?”
Chava Rosenfarb, Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays Edited by Goldie Morgentaler McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 Scholar and professor Morgentaler has gathered an impressive collection of writings by her mother, Chava Rosenfarb. A…
The Chasm between Them and Us
Kadya Molodovsky, A Jewish Refugee in New York: Rivke Zilberg’s Journal Translated by Anita Norich The accomplished Yiddish writer Molodovsky wrote this novel in serialized form in 1940-41, knowing obviously what was happening at the…
Oath of Disloyalty by Irwin Keller
Today I received the following in an email from Rabbi Lerner. I am a disloyal Jew. I am not loyal to a political party. Nor will I be loyal to dictators and mad kings. I…
Reading Roth on Writing and Reading
George Searles, editor, Conversations with Philip Roth Literary Conversation Series University Press of Mississippi 1992 I settled in this morning with a collection of interviews with Philip Roth, from the bright beginning of his career…
“Born Only Yesterday, and Already She Speaks Like a Perfect Mensch”
12.14.17 Dear Dianne, I think this is the 4th time I’m reading Meshugah. It was originally serialized in the Yiddish Daily Forward. Because I’m reading it with you, and because Hedy is on our minds,…
“If the Messiah Comes, He’ll Come to This Cafeteria in Miami”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shadows on the Hudson Translated by Joseph Sherman Like Meshugah, this is another novel translated from the Yiddish and published after Singer’s death. In Shadows I was gripped by the various characters…
Melting a Heart of Ice
Late in life, I got around to reading Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye the Dairyman (translated by Hillel Halkin, who suggested it was “possibly the greatest of all Jewish novels”). It sounded funnily familiar…. Flogging a dead…