My Machberet's New Home

Shalom, chaverim. It is my pleasure to announce the imminent launch of my new website. Beginning later this evening, My Machberet will be housed on www.erikadreifus.com. Click here to go directly to the new My Machberet.

Please bear with me (and my web designer). We think we've anticipated everything that needs to happen to ensure a smooth transition, but you never know what will happen! Any inconvenience will, I hope, be worth the trouble. The new website is a beauty...and it's got some wonderful features I can't wait to share with you!

Jewish Literary Festival Writing Contest Announced

From the DC JCC, home to the Hyman S. & Freyda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival (October 17-27, 2010):

Community Prize for Writing on a Festival Theme
Strangers in a Strange Land: The Lives of Jewish Immigrants

We surround ourselves with communities that sustain and enrich our lives. When we leave those communities—by choice, by force, or both—our lives are upended. What do we choose to take with us to the new environment, and what do we leave behind? This year’s Opening Night explores these questions of immigration and home.

Jews have often found themselves strangers in strange lands, but new environments are not always the result of physical displacement. Tell us a true story—from your life or a family member’s—of finding oneself alone in a new place or situation.

Submissions are open to all and will be judged blindly. Work will be considered in two categories: 1) 18 years and under, and 2) over 18. Please include your contact information and age category on the first page only. Send submissions of 500 words or fewer to litfest(at)washingtondcjcc(dot)org by September 27, 2010.

A selection committee will choose three entries in each category to honor during the Festival and online. These winning entries will be published on the 16th Street J’s website and The Blog at 16th & Q. The first place selection in each category will win the Community Prize for Writing and a $100 Visa gift card.

Note: No previously-published work, please.

Jewish Book Carnival: Part Deux

The second monthly Jewish Book Carnival, organized by the Association of Jewish Libraries, is now online. (My Machberet is a proud participant.) Please check out all the terrific news and reviews of Jewish books, and help spread the word.

Notes from Around the Web

Rachel Shukert, Zionist Secret Agent (and Memoirist).

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On the Jew Wishes blog, a review of Ghita Schwarz's new novel, Displaced Persons.

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An atypically negative take on Gary Shteyngart's new novel (and the work of his "nominal cohort").

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"Rozinkes mit mandlen" appears on author Steve Stern's playlist.

Shabbat shalom!

Words of the Week (Or, Why Nicholas Kristof Has Lost Credibility With Me)

"In his recent columns, [Nicholas] Kristof discusses the occupation as if it came about through Israeli avarice and greed alone. He manages to write about the situation in Gaza with hardly a reference to the rocket attacks that led to the Israeli blockade; he writes about the security barrier as if it wasn't built to stop a flood of suicide bombers from the West Bank. Kristof is a smart columnist but he undermines himself by refusing to acknowledge what [Thomas] Friedman understands, that the Middle East is maddeningly complicated, and that what appears to be easy-to-understand often isn't."

Source: Jeffrey Goldberg

My only disagreement here with the greatness that is Goldblog is in the use of the word "comically" elsewhere in the post, as in: "Read Friedman's column carefully; it seems to me he's talking directly to Kristof, whose writing on the Middle East has become a bit comically one-sided." Emphasis is mine. I find nothing comical about Kristof's columns about Israel. I find them shameful and infuriating.

High Holiday Poetry Contest 2010

MyJewishLearning is running a High Holiday Poetry Contest--and you're invited to participate.

Submitted poems "can be funny, or serious, or both. They can rhyme. They can be long (though we are from the Internet short-attention-span-generation). We want to be entertained, and we want to be inspired."

Submit by August 25. Winning entries will be published online in time for Rosh Hashanah.

There will be prizes!

For more info, check MyJewishLearning.

(via the Jewish Book Council)

My Machberet Receives A Beautiful Blogger Award

Our friends at the Jewish Book Council recently nominated us for a Beautiful Blogger Award (thank you, again!). To claim this prize, we need to share seven little-known facts about My Machberet...and pass the award on to seven other bloggers.

So here are some things you may not know about My Machberet and the blogger behind it.

1. The Hebrew name of My Machberet's author is Yocheved. I am named for my maternal grandmother's mother ("Yettie"), who was born in Galicia in 1891 and died in Brooklyn in 1931.

2. One of my earliest and favorite childhood reads was a beat-up, falling-apart storybook that was kept at the home of my paternal grandparents (I think it was my dad's when he was a child--our copy, which I now possess, is from the second printing in 1948). Its title: Habibi and Yow: A Little Boy and His Dog. It is through this book that I first learned about many Jewish holidays, blessings, and traditions. I can still hear my grandmother's voice reading it to me....

3. I've attended Hebrew School/religious instruction in Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform settings.

4. Since the summer of 1978, I have been a proud Reform Jew.

5. The first published writing to earn me a paycheck was a poem that appeared in Young Judaean magazine (I was 15 when I wrote it).

6. I resigned from the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) in 2006 when the then-president of the organization refused to stop using the NBCC blog as a bully pulpit for his own anti-Israel preachings (and harassed me personally when I objected to the practice). Now that he has moved on to other projects, I occasionally consider rejoining. But the experience left me with a lot of bad feelings.

7. My soon-to-be-unveiled new website will feature a resource section tailored to Jewish writing/writers.

And now, please allow me to introduce another seven "beautiful bloggers":

The Arty Semite
The Boston Bibliophile
Brave New Words
Jeffrey Goldberg (if you're a regular reader of My Machberet, you knew that that one was coming!)
Jew Wishes
Jewish Muse
What Would Phoebe Do

I hope that you find all of these blogs as interesting, informative, and inspiring as I do!

Notes from Around the Web

A big todah rabah to the Jewish Book Council for tapping My Machberet for a "Beautiful Blogger Award" (now, it seems I need to script a post to "claim" the award proper).

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Other news from the JBC: The group's next Twitter Book Club will take place on Wednesday, September 15. The chosen title: Mitchell J. Kaplan's By Fire, By Water.

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"Hans Keilson is not entirely unknown in America," writes Adam Kirsch for Tablet. But before I read Kirsch's article, Keilson was unknown to me. I am glad that Kirsch (and, in the Boston Globe, Linda K. Wertheimer) have enlightened me, and I plan to read both Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key asap.

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Meantime, of course (and as per usual), Josh Lambert, also writing for Tablet, also adds to my tbr list.

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So, too, does the Jewish Book Council reliably provide tbr titles. In this case, fall fiction from Israel (in translation).

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Wise words from Allegra Goodman.

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Thanks to Jewish Ideas Daily for pointing me to this very interesting review of Inventing the Israelite: Jewish Fiction in Nineteenth-Century France.

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The latest Jewish Reader book-group guide from the National Yiddish Book Center focuses on Joan Leegant's new novel, Wherever You Go.

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And if you're looking for a new calendar to mark the quickly-approaching Jewish New Year, consider the latest offering from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute's calendar project, which features "Jewish Women Writers: The Cities Behind the Stories."

Recent Reads: The J-Word, by Andrew Sanger

As a Jewish-American, I'm very interested in the experiences of Jews in other countries, past or present, factual or fictional. Andrew Sanger's debut novel, The J-Word, presents one such glimpse into 21st-century Jewish life--in England--by focusing on octogenarian Jack Silver and his family. (If Sanger's name is familiar, that may be because you've seen him guest-blog right here on My Machberet.)

What I found here--apart from certain figures of speech, a pronounced recurrence of teatime, and a greater focus on "football" (soccer) than we tend to find in American literature--were many similarities with threads of Jewish experience in the United States. To be sure, Jack's long-sustained quest to become truly "English" and fully assimilated is a situation quite familiar to readers of Jewish-American literature. The incorporation of prayer snippets and Yiddishims is another link (anyone needing refreshers or translations will find them in footnotes and a glossary). But the book also reflects newer aspects of Jewish contemporary experience that cannot fail to resonate in an American reader just as they might in an English one.

Take, for instance, these musings from Jack, shortly after he is attacked by a gang in what is clearly an anti-Semitic hate crime:

Maybe the answer is education. An intelligent, aware population. That, he realised, was an impossibility. Some of the best educated people hate Jews. So a liberal, tolerant society? He grimaced at the thought. In his mind he saw ranks of pale, thin-lipped English men and women saying 'we're not antisemitic,' the readers and writers of the Guardian and the Independent, sympathising with suicide attackers, calling for boycotts and spreading hatred of Israel. He laughed bitterly. 'Oh no, it's only Israel and its supporters we hate,' he said, 'not Jews.' The Guardian and the Independent and the BBC are leading us to the next Holocaust. Then they will be able to report on it with horrified condemnations. What about the Jews who take that side, too - Harold Pinter and the rest? Fools!

Now, I happen to be a reader who appreciates a good dose of politics in fiction, and I also happen to be someone who discerns with increasing frustration in some American media outlets much of the same content/opinion that Jack highlights here on the English side. In other words, I am sympathetic to Jack's particular political views. I admire Sanger's writing here very much. It takes bravery to write like this. It also takes skill. Whatever Sanger's personal views might be, these few lines convey at least as much power and conviction as might a full-fledged op-ed. But undoubtedly, some readers may not share my enthusiasm on these points.

I haven't done justice here to this novel, which merits a much more detailed examination, so I will send you to some other sources. Meantime, I'm quite glad that I've had the opportunity to read The J-Word, and (disclosure!) I'm grateful to the publisher for the review copy.

Further Resources:

• Andrew Sanger, "America Starts to Discover The J-Word"
• Joy Sable (for The Jewish Chronicle), Review of The J-Word
• OyVaGoy (Chas Newkey-Burden), Brief review and interview with Andrew Sanger
• Scribblers on the Roof, Interview with Andrew Sanger

Super Splendid Terrific Conference News

Last Friday, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), announced its "tentative list of accepted panels for the AWP 2011 Conference & Bookfair in Washington, D.C.at" The final list will be available in October (the conference is slated for early February 2011).

I was thrilled to learn that the following panel is among the accepted events:

Beyond Bagels and Lox: Jewish-American Fiction in the 21st Century
Erika Dreifus, Andrew Furman, Kevin Haworth, Margot Singer, Anna Solomon
Jewish-American fiction has long been seen as a literature of emigration from the shtetl, assimilationist angst, and overprotective parents. But what's nu? How do Americans born decades after the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel deal with those complex subjects in fiction? Who are the new Jewish immigrant characters? How does American Jewry's more than 350-year history inspire plot/setting? And how are writers today influenced by Judaism's rich multilingual and spiritual legacy?

At least two other events on the list seem linked to issues of Jewish writing: "Two Jews, a Catholic, a Buddhist, a Mennonite Sufi Shaman, and a ________ walk into an AWP Panel: Geography’s Influence on Writers Writing Religion and Culture," featuring Eric Wasserman, Ira Sukrungruang, Heather Derr-Smith, Bich Minh Nguyen, Erika Meitner, and Mary Biddinger; and "Jewish Guilt," with Janice Eidus, Carol V. Davis, Marjorie Agosin, Ruth Knafo Setton, and Elaine Terranova.

It's wonderful to see Jewish writing acknowledged and celebrated in the conference program. Now, to prepare some excellent presentations! Stay tuned--I'll be asking for reader input!

Notes from Around the Web/Twitter

Benjamin Ivry's account of the disinvitation of Israeli writer and translator Esther Orner from an academic conference in France motivated me to respond: I immediately ordered two of Orner's books from Amazon.fr.
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Also from Monsieur Ivry: an intriguing description of a new play, "an imaginary conversation between [Georges] Mandel and [Léon] Blum when, during Germany’s occupation of France, both were imprisoned at Buchenwald." What can I say--this appeals to the historian-of-twentieth-century-France in me.
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Barbara Krasner provides a report on the first annual New York Sephardic Book Fair.
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Some new Jewish poetry has been posted over on the New Vilna Review's website. See especially Matthew Hartmann's "Warsaw is Burning."
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If you're between the ages of 22 and 35 you are eligible for an incredible opportunity: a "Writers' Seminar on the Jewish People," led by Samuel Freedman. (I'll 'fess up and admit that I tried [unsuccessfully] to gain admission the last time this seminar was offered...although I was already beyond 35!) There's no application fee, and you have until September 5 to apply. (Thanks to our friends at the Jewish Book Council for the news about this year's seminar.)
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Moment magazine is looking for an Assistant Editor. Details here.
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Oh, have you heard that Gary Shteyngart has a new novel out? I laughed a little when I saw this tidbit on Twitter: "SUPER SAD Moving Up List: Another day, another review, or two, for Gary Shteyngart’s satiric Super Sad True Love S... http://bit.ly/b3YhON" (source: earlyword). The publicity for this book has been incredible! I have to admit I am getting curiouser and curiouser...and the book is on my tbr list.

Shabbat shalom!

Words of the Week: Jacob Weisberg

Over on my other blog, I routinely publish a "Quotation of the Week," something about writing (which is the focus of said other blog).

I'm beginning to think I should launch a "quotatation of the week" feature here, too. Below, you'll find this week's entry, taken from a discussion about boycotts of Israel (mainly, a current entertainment industry-fueled boycott).

"When people are trying to murder you because of your religion, it is difficult to credit the bona fides of those who merely want to shun you because of your nationality."

--Jacob Weisberg (via Jeffrey Goldberg)

Recent Reads: Grace Schulman's First Loves and Other Adventures

Now that I've joined Goodreads, I've been chronicling most of my "recent reads" over there. Hence, today's My Machberet post is actually a cross-posting of the write-up I gave earlier this month to Grace Schulman's First Loves and Other Adventures, a recent release from the University of Michigan Press's Poets on Poetry series.

Grace Schulman has to be one of the most generous writers out there. I had the privilege of meeting her for a profile I wrote not too long after I began working at The City University of New York, where she is a Distinguished Professor at Baruch College. I left our first meeting with an armful of books, and when we met again a few months back, she asked if she might send me her latest: First Loves and Other Adventures.

I probably can't be completely unbiased, but having had the opportunity to get to know this author a bit, I find the opening and closing essays in this collection most striking. They are also, arguably, the most personal.

In the first, "Helen," Schulman describes family history, the experience of growing up Jewish in New York while the Holocaust unfolded across the ocean, and the connections she sensed from an early age with her father's sister, Helena ("my parents Anglicized it"), who died in the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. The closing piece, "An Uncommon Friend," recounts the relationship Schulman and her husband had with author Richard Yates. I was in the room at the 2008 conference in New York where Schulman presented this text on a panel honoring Yates's life and work; I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to revisit it.

In the introduction to this volume, Schulman describes the essays within as being "of two kinds: first, about becoming a writer; second, about some of the books I love." The book encompasses reflections on May Swenson, Marianne Moore, Octavio Paz, and others. And anything Schulman writes is worth reading. Still, the first and last essays are the ones I'll remember the longest.

Notes from Around the Web

The always-sagacious Josh Lambert rounds up a group of "beach reads" for Tablet.
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The New York Times follows up on the brouhaha surrounding a new play, Imagining Madoff.
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Benjamin Ivry writes about Frédéric Chouraki's new novel, La Guerre de Kippour (the subject matter isn't quite what you may guess from the title).
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The Poetry Foundation takes note of a collection of Yiddish poetry (translated by Dr. Sarah Traister Moskovitz) originally written by Jews who were trapped in the Warsaw ghetto.
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Sarah Seltzer reflects on being the only Jew in her MFA program's incoming cohort. Brought back quite a few memories of my own similar experience. (via @JewishMuse)
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Paid internship opportunities at Tablet magazine.
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And still more from Tablet: Rachel Shukert (whose work I've mentioned here in the past) has a new book out, and Tablet is co-hosting a celebration next Tuesday.

Shabbat shalom!

Bay Area Screenings of "Grace Paley: Collected Shorts"

Bay Area fans of author/activist Grace Paley have at least two opportunities to see Lily Rivlin's documentary, Grace Paley: Collected Shorts.

From the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival description:

Lily Rivlin's (Gimme a Kiss, SFJFF 2002) intimate documentary is a rich, inspiring portrait of Jewish writer and activist Grace Paley, who passed away in 2007. Paley's acclaimed first short story collection, The Little Disturbances of Man, established her reputation with its brilliantly sad and funny chronicles of Jewish American urban females much like herself. Paley's New York tales, filled with an emotional and sexual frankness especially bold at the tail end of the frightened 1950s, soon became classics of the short fiction form. Not content to rest on her laurels, however, Paley combined her evolving literary career with passionate pursuit of her political concerns through the 1960s, 70s and 80s. "Art is too long and life is too short,"wrote the outspoken Paley, "There's a lot more to do in life than writing." Indeed, she spent the rest of her life on the front lines of the anti-war and women's movements, where she endured being arrested time and again. Rivlin's film confidently juggles all aspects of Paley's extraordinary story, told in candid recollections and passionate readings by Paley herself, along with fond remembrances by literary critics, family and writer-friends Allan Gurganus and Alice Walker. Throughout, Grace Paley: Collected Shorts casts an important and penetrating light on a brilliant and highly principled woman who constantly reinvented both her life and art.

You can catch the film on July 25th at The Castro Theatre in San Francisco, or on August 1st at The Roda Theatre in Berkeley.

Notes from Around the Web

Israel, Orthodoxy, and much more appear in Sarah/Sara, Jacob Paul's debut novel--and in my review for the Fiction Writers Review website.
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Speaking of the above review, I'm proud that it's part of the first installment of the Jewish Book Carnival, organized this month by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Please do check out this month's collection of carnival contributions.
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One of the links in the aforementioned carnival will take you to this review of Natasha Solomons's Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English, which I began reading this week (also for a review, so I won't say too much else until the review is done and published).
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As To Kill A Mockingbird celebrates its 50th birthday, Eric Herschthal asks "Did Harper Lee Whitewash the Jewish Past?"
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The summer issue of the Jewish Review of Books is out, and some of the content is available online.
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It was Bastille Day this week, in case you forgot. Which makes this a good time to mention that Benjamin Ivry's Arty Semite posts routinely provide insights into French-Jewish literary culture. And the What Would Phoebe Do blog is a good source for "Francophilic Zionism."

Shabbat shalom!

Moment Magazine Seeks Features Editor

"Moment Magazine seeks an experienced features editor. This editor works closely and collaboratively with other editors and writers to steer Moment’s inventive, well-researched and descriptive articles from story ideas to print. Past articles include a profile of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the first in a ground-breaking series on Israel’s Arab citizens, a letter from Burma and the 2010 Symposium featuring Mel Brooks, Leonard Nimoy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and many more. The perfect candidate will be a well-rounded, inquisitive, patient, friendly individual who will work tirelessly to turn good ideas into great stories and do much more in our small office. Four-six years of magazine experience. Knowledge of Jewish/Middle East politics, culture, history and religion is helpful. Moment Magazine is a national independent publication of Jewish politics, religion and culture co-founded in 1975 by Elie Wiesel and Leonard Fein. This is a wonderful opportunity to join the team of a magazine Slate calls a 'must read.' Salary is competitive with other nonprofit publications and commensurate with experience." More info/application instructions here.

Notes from Around the Web

Direct from the Association of Jewish Libraries convention: book reviewing resources.
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The Boston Bibliophile interviews Carla Jablonski, author of a graphic novel, Resistance: Book 1, "which focuses on the French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II and in particular about the efforts of a French family to save French Jews."
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Tablet tells us about 10 novels in a "Jewish fall fiction preview."
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You may have noticed a new addition to the blogroll: Jew Wishes, a superb site that features "book reviews on Jewish-related books and films, news on Jewish community, Judaism and such." (Thanks to Nina Badzin for leading me to it!)
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And, as a follow-up to Wednesday's post, you can learn more about JewishFiction.net in this "Arty Semite" interview with editor Nora Gold.
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Finally, although you can't read it online, I am THRILLED to announce that the July-August issue of Moment magazine includes my poem, "Pünktlichkeit" (see p. 32).

Shabbat Shalom!

Introducing JewishFiction.net

When I first heard about the establishment of JewishFiction.net, two aspects of the new online venue for English-language fiction on Jewish themes caught my attention.

First, I was impressed to learn that Toronto-based Dr. Nora Gold was the editorial brain behind the venture. I discovered Gold's story collection, Marrow, several years ago, thanks to a presentation at a conference of the Society for Jewish American and Holocaust Literature. And I thought the book was terrific.

I was less impressed, however, when I found out that the journal was going to charge $15 as a submission fee. I can be antsy about submission fees even for contests that promise cash prizes. I become very nervous when a journal charges a submission fee without even the chance of earning some pay for the work.

Happily, the editor informed me earlier this week that the submission fee requirement has been removed. If you're interested in submitting, or simply want to learn more about the project, please click here.

Notes from Around the Web

As is not uncommon, I agree with Andrew Silow-Carroll: Like him, I did not read The Yiddish Policemen's Union as Michael Chabon's effort to "parod[y] Zionism."
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Allison Amend shares a playlist inspired by her novel, Stations West (watch for our forthcoming interview in Jewish Book World).
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For a literary take on the summer/Fourth of July, the Paper Cuts blog looks to Gary Shteyngart's newest novel.
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Shalom Auslander presents a very funny piece on the voices that accompany his writing over on Tablet (the "Prize Committee" and the "Huffington Poster" voices made me laugh out loud).
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Pre-publication posts for my story collection, Quiet Americans, continue over on my other blog. Up this week: Göring, Golda, and other "real-life" characters in fiction.
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Allegra Goodman has been guest-blogging for MyJewishLearning.com and the Jewish Book Council this week. Check out her posts on Writing "Jewish" Fiction and World Artists.

And with that, I bid you a Shabbat Shalom!