- NEWS & COMMENTARY
Hezbollah in big Syria battle, Obama ‘concerned’
Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas have fought their biggest battle yet for Syria's beleaguered president, prompting international alarm that the civil war may spread and an urgent call for restraint from the…
What happened to Obama?
You know things are getting rough for President Barack Obama when even The New Yorker, that bastion of liberal thought, starts ridiculing him. Reacting to how the president is distancing himself from his administration’s three emerging scandals—the mishandling of the…
ZOA regains tax-exempt status
After 15 months, the nonprofit pro-Israel Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has regained its tax-exempt status.
- HOLLYWOOD
Mel Brooks’ top 10 Jewy Jewish scenes [VIDEO]
Monday night marks the national premier broadcast of the American Masters installment on Mel Brooks. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together a collection of Brooks’ best Jewish clips.
Alan Dershowitz sends ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ episode to Netanyahu
Comedian Larry David has been called a lot of things over the course of his long and successful career, but we’re pretty sure “peace maker” has never been one of…
James Franco paints ad for ‘This is The End’
Proving once again that there isn’t anything he doesn’t do, James Franco has created marketing material for his upcoming film “This is The End.” The actor/artist/Ph.D. candidate was spotted in…
- LIFE & CULTURE
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
Survivor: Irene Rosenberg
“Mommy, I’ll be right back.” Irene Rosenberg — then Irene Grunfeld — said as she was leaving the apartment of her cousin Mancy Weiss, where she and her mother were…
The Divine Wedding and Kiss - Parashat Naso
“O for your kiss! For your love / More enticing than wine, / For your scent and sweet name – For all this they love you. Take me away to…
- BLOGS
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
What would my Israeli grandmother think?
When I hear about the latest events in Israel – the air strikes on weapons facilities in Syria, the flare-ups over women donning prayer shawls at the Western Wall –…
A hot topic, a great panel, and chance to learn and discuss—immigration at issue
It's a critical time for immigration reform in this country. Washington is getting set to make major changes, the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1980's under President…
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Jay Neugeboren gets reel with latest novel
"For far too long, Jay Neugeboren has been known as a writer’s writer and as the nurturing teacher of future writers,” Sanford Pinsker wrote in the Forward about one of Neugeboren’s earlier books. “It is high time for a wider audience.”
Michael Chabon’s search for authentic expression
A writer walks into a room full of rabbis. This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s not. In the words of Woody Allen’s “Broadway Danny Rose,” “It’s the emes.”
New play, “Therapy,” explores the the lives and fears of therapist
Comedy writer Sol Weinstein dies at 84
When I first moved to California from Philadelphia in 1978, Leon Brown, editor of the Jewish Exponent, told me to look up his friend Sol Weinstein.
Frankfurt ripped for honoring scholar who backs Israel boycott
Protests are mounting against plans by the city of Frankfurt to honor Jewish-American scholar Judith Butler, a staunch critic of Israel.
Authors return to scene of Israeli espionage
We think we have some important stories to tell, and thus we returned to the subject of Israeli espionage. Our first effort in that field was a book in 1990 titled “Every Spy a Prince.” Twenty-two years later, we spoke with more people and got more stories — about recent events, but also new details about important operations going back to the beginnings of the Jewish state in 1948.
Hungarian Jews seek removal of anti-Semitic writers from curriculum
Hungarian Jews urged the government to take four anti-Semitic authors off the national high school curriculum.
‘Prime Ministers’ author to speak in Beverly Hills
Ambassador Yehuda Avner, who served as a diplomat, speechwriter and prime ministerial adviser in Israeli governments from the 1950s to the 1990s, will speaking this weekend at Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills. Avner wrote “The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership” (The Toby Press, LLC, 2010), a 700-page opus based on notes he took while serving as adviser or secretary to five prime ministers. The book, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards in 2010, is now being made into two motion pictures.
‘Where the Wild Things Are’ author Maurice Sendak dies at 83
Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of the children's book "Where the Wild Things Are," has died.
U.S. author Eggers will not accept Gunter Grass prize in person
American author Dave Eggers said he will not travel to Germany to accept a literary prize from the Gunter Grass Foundation.
Wolpe vs. Beinart
Announcing his new book in a hucksterish email to J street members, Peter Beinart details the truths vouchsafed to him and his fellow enlightened acolytes. A brief sampler:
Three quick comments on Paul Auster, Turkey and Israel
Christopher Hitchens: A rabbi remembers a friend and fellow debater
In his brilliant history of early modern England, “The Ends of Life,” historian Keith Thomas quotes a translator named George Petrie who wrote in 1581, “The only way to win immortality is either to do things worth the writing, or write things worth the reading.” Christopher Hitchens is, by this reckoning, twice immortal.
Christopher Hitchens and the fall of a worthy adversary
Christopher Hitchens, contrarian who embraced and battled Judaism, dead at 62
Christopher Hitchens, the atheist and iconoclast who discovered in adulthood that he was of Jewish descent, has died.
Ragen loses plagiarism suit
Israeli author Naomi Ragen lost a plagiarism suit regarding her best-selling book "Sotah."
Israeli author booted from Marseilles panel
An Israeli author was kicked off a panel discussion in Marseilles at the request of the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish.
Israeli author ousted from panel
Author promotes moderate faith for Iranian Jews
After their immigration to Southern California more than 30 years ago, the majority of the area’s Iranian Jewish community poured their energies into re-establishing themselves financially. Following their success, some Iranian Jews have turned their attention to promoting philanthropy in the arts, education and Israel in recent years.
Author charged in Jewish online dating scam
American author Mitchell Gross was indicted for allegedly scamming women he met on an online Jewish dating service.
The New Yorker’s Bruce Eric Kaplan on His New Book and Judd Apatow TV Series
McEwan defends decision to accept Jerusalem Prize
British author Ian McEwan defended his decision to accept Israel's Jerusalem Prize. Writing in the the Guardian newspaper Wednesday, McEwan admitted his concerns "about Israel and the situation of the Palestinians, which is worse than ever." However, he maintained that he would go to Jerusalem to accept the prize, Israel's highest literary honor for foreign writers.
Author Ian McEwan to receive Jerusalem Prize
British author Ian McEwan was chosen to receive the prestigious Jerusalem Prize. The biennial prize, which will be awarded next month in a ceremony on the opening night of the Jerusalem Book Fair, is Israel's highest literary honor for foreign writers. The award is given to an author whose works best exemplify the "freedom of the individual in society."
Amos Elon, Israeli Author, Dies at 84
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel dead at 96
" . . . My mother came from Bialystock, near the Russo-Polish border, a very cosmopolitan town decimated by the Nazis. My father came from a suburb [and was] a tailor. Chicago is the biggest Polish population of any city outside of Warsaw . . . "
AUDIO: Interview with author Rebecca Goldstein
Eric Tomb talks with Rebecca Goldstein about her philosophical studies Betraying Spinoza: Ther Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity and Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Goedel. From public radio's KVMR-FM
As she remembers it
Do you write from memory? Someone always asks, and I become tongue-tied and uncertain, scrambling for the words, the ways to make believable what I know will sound bizarre -- a too-complicated response where all that is required is a simple "Yes" or "No" or "Sometimes; the rest is research."
I lived in Iran for only 13 years. I remember very little -- a handful of places, a couple of dozen friends and relatives. Yet, I've spent my entire career writing about the country and its people, and I've written it all -- this is the part that's difficult to explain -- from memory.
On the tricky question of ‘who is a Jew[ish writer]?’
So we return, with the inevitability of quarrels in a shul, to the question posed at the outset: what makes a Jewish writer? I promised to avoid it, but there is a Wittgensteinian way out (and by the way, was he a Jewish philosopher?) A Jewish writer is someone whom we choose to call a "Jewish" writer. Would we rather have a clear category or fecundity and individuality of expression? Uniformity of commitment or divergence? The dilemma of modern Jewish writing is the same as that which bedevils modern Judaism: Where one can be everything, how likely is it that in the end, bristling with talent and showered with opportunity, one will come to nothing?
Adventures of Tom & Chabon
Interview with novelist Michael Chabon.
I’ve never had real heroes
t is true that Gunter Grass has brought much good into the world by his writings. It is also true that his late-in-life revelation calls into question or, depending on your point of view, entirely invalidates his right to the high moral ground he has for so long occupied. But in doing so, he has proven to those of us who have followed his life and career what he says he learned as a POW after the war: That no truth is ever entirely true, that what we revere today may become indefensible tomorrow, that the wisest path through life is to distrust certainty and instead to walk, in Grass' own words, "the long route, paved with doubts."
Authors explain Jewish influences on their works
The Jewish Journal invited writers who will be featured at Sunday's Festival of Books to answer the simple, essential question that every Jewish writer is often asked: "What Jewish sources -- ideas, writings, traditions -- inspire you, and how do they show up in your work?" The following show that there is no easy answer to what defines a Jewish author, but there is no question that there's much to draw upon within the faith.
Books: Brits behaving badly
Interview with author Charlotte Mendelson about her novel "When We Were Bad".
Sitcom superstars, sultry songstresses, literary diamonds
Picks and Clicks
Obituaries
Obituaries.
Book Tour Blues
Books: Yehoshua’s latest explores boundaries of responsibility
The U.S publishers hated the title of A.B. Yehoshua's latest book "The Mission of the Human Resources Manager." It was, they argued, better suited to a personnel manual than the work of one of Israel's most venerated authors. Ignoring Yehoshua's pleas, they christened the novel's English translation "A Woman in Jerusalem," and the book became a nominee for this year's prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize, to be announced at the Times' Festival of Books this weekend (see story page 36).
Crooners celebrate Canuckia’s Cohen and a first for our very own Greenberg
Picks and Clicks
Briefs: Israel reviews Jerusalem dig; U.S. offers reward for Islamic Jihad leader
Briefs
Debbie Friedman, L.A. Opera, Norman Mailer and David Mamet
Calendar
Briefs: Journalist: West Is losing ‘War of Ideas;’ Daniel Pipes comes to Pepperdine
Community Briefs
And nothing but the truth
Internet dating -- everyone does it, and everyone complains about it. Why? The guys think the girls lie, and the girls think the guys lie. And the truth is: everybody lies.
William Styron, an appreciation
Bill Styron died last week at the age of 81.
The author of the "Confessions of Nat Turner" and "Sophie's Choice" was indisputably a great writer, a writer's writer. His words were carefully, painstakingly chosen and anyone who loved the English language enjoyed the pure craftsmanship of Styron.
Jewish Book Month’s Table of Contents
Jewish Book Month's Table of Contents
A Different Israel
Israel beyond the headlines, a country that has produced a world-class literature.
Married . . . at last!
I got married for the first time at 50. The groom was 51. Yes, we are both Jewish. We met online.
Steve Rubin has a passion for war
To meet him, you might think Steven Rubin is a normal person. Tall, handsome, happily married with young children, he is personable, affable -- in short, one of the gentlest and nicest guys you could meet. But he is a man obsessed with war -- World War II to be precise.
So many authors, so little time
Q & A With Russian Jewish Author Gary Shteyngart
"Absurdistan" (Random House, $24.95), Gary Shteyngart's extraordinary new novel, takes us on a no-holds-barred journey from post-communist Russia to a mythical former Soviet Union state he calls Absurdistan, with stop-offs in between to his beloved New York City. Q & A session.
Finding Deeper Truths in Fiction—the Best About Israel
One should read Israeli writers, of course -- Agnon, Amichai, A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, Orly Castel-Bloom, Etgar Keret. But the more appropriate template may come from fellow Americans, writers who, by exploring the Diaspora Jew's relationship to Israel, have gone down this road before.
Life vs. Death
Phillip Roth's "Everyman," (Houghton Mifflin) is a short, and in some respects, slight work. Clocking in at around 200 pages, it recounts the life of one man through his medical history. As an organizing principle, this one's as valid as any, even if in this instance, it doesn't necessarily yield the most compelling, multidimensional portrait.
7 Days in the Arts
7 Days in the Arts
Beware the Finkelstein Syndrome
It is well known that some children of Holocaust survivors carry severe scars and wounds that actually manifest in peculiar psychological behavior. For two decades, I worked as a licensed family therapist, and I believe that some day soon there will be a formal psychological syndrome that would account for self-hating Jews like Norman Finkelstein. Perhaps the syndrome will even be named after him: The Finkelstein Syndrome.
Comforting Mothers Without Mothers
"My childhood skidded to a stop on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of my 15th year, with my mother's first mammogram results," writes Hope Edelman in her moving new book, "Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become" (Harper Collins). For Edelman, her mother's illness and subsequent death from cancer two years later in 1981 were the beginning of a journey of loss, self-exploration and eventual emotional redemption that has spanned nearly a quarter-century and spawned three well-received books on the subject.
Touring With Lévy a Dizzying Experience
Author Challenges ‘Brainy’ Jews Myth
Video Takes Bite Out of Kosher Slaughter
Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the best-selling novel, "Everything Is Illuminated" (Houghton Mifflin, 2002) and last year's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (Houghton Mifflin) released a video earlier this month in which he argues that the slaughtering practices employed by modern factory farms are out of step with the spirit of the kosher laws. The film ultimately calls upon viewers to consider vegetarianism.
‘Empire’ Conquers Monstrous Task
It is not accidental that Gershom Gorenberg limited his substantial study, "The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977," to the first decade of the settler movement, for by 1977, when Menachem Begin and the right gained power for the first time in Israeli history, 80 settlements housing more than 11,000 Israelis already dotted the territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Tommywood - Grossman Revealed
Vasily Grossman's stories helped him gain admittance to the Soviet Writer's Union. As a successful writer, the state treated him well: He was paid handsomely, had good housing (an apartment in the center of Moscow) and was invited (and allowed) to take his family on vacation to a dacha on the Black Sea.
A Tenuous Claim as a Jew for Jesus
You know Jews for Jesus, the lovable San Francisco-based organization that uses the appeal of Jewish kinship to introduce Jews to "Y'shua ha Mashiach" (Jesus Christ). Its executive director is a pleasant fellow named David Brickner. After he critiqued my book, "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus," in a Jews for Jesus publication and later graciously retracted a prominent factual error he made, we started e-mailing.
‘Design’-ing Woman Comes to Town
"Susie Fishbein has done for Jewish cooking what [rabbi and author] Aryeh Kaplan did for beginning Judaism," said Rabbi Shimon Kraft of the 613 Mitzvah Store on Pico Boulevard. "They're buying her cookbooks en masse. She's a genius at editing and putting everything all together."
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