Notes from Around the Web

In the Jewish Journal, Rob Eshman describes a recent encounter with Israeli author Amos Oz. (via Ten Minutes of Torah).
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Mark Robichaux reviews We Were Merchants, a new book that "recounts the journey of Erich and Lea Sternberg, Jewish immigrants who escaped with their daughter and two sons from the Nazi terror in Germany in the 1930s and, speaking no English, went into the department-store business in the Deep South. 'We Were Merchants' also describes how the Sternberg family— Erich and Lea would eventually be joined at work by their sons, Hans and Josef, and daughter, Insa—spent the next half-century building up what became the country's largest family-owned department store, acquiring other stores along the way."
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"The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives is pleased to invite applications to its annual Fellowship Program for the 2010-2011 academic year. The Marcus Center's Fellowship Program provides recipients with month long fellowships for research and writing at The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, located on the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Fellowship stipends will be sufficient to cover transportation and living expenses while in residence in Cincinnati. Applicants for the Marcus Center Fellowship program must be conducting serious research in some area relating to the history of North American Jewry." Deadline: March 18, 2010.
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Naomi Firestone shares news of the debut of YM Books, a new venture from Yaldah Magazine. YM Books will focus on books for Jewish girls. (Writers, take note: YM Books is open to queries.)
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And speaking of the younger set: Over on Literary Mama, Rebecca Steinitz offers holiday reading suggestions - and features a number of Jewish holiday titles.
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Finally, I can't tell you how great it was to open an e-mail from Lilith and find out that my friend Rachel Hall's story, "The Things We Do," has launched a new fiction podcast series. "The Things We Do" won Lilith's inaugural fiction contest and was originally published in fall 2001. Yay, Rachel!