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!

Elena Kagan: "I am Jewish. The State of Israel has meant a lot to me...."

Everyone (including my beloved Goldblog) seems to be getting some good laughs from Elena Kagan's Chinese-food-on-Christmas comment during yesterday's segment of her confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justiceship. But honestly, I was much more moved--and impressed--by her comments about Israel earlier in the day.

Responding to questions from Senator Grassley about her admiration for former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, Kagan referred to Israel as "a nation threatened from its very beginning," a nation that, despite all the challenges it faced from the start, had managed to establish a government featuring respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary.

It's no secret, Kagan continued, that "I am Jewish. The State of Israel has meant a lot to me and my family, and I admire Justice Barak for what he has done for the State of Israel...."

It's so simple, in a way: "I am Jewish. The State of Israel has meant a lot to me...."

I wish that these statements were getting as much good-natured attention as the Chinese food comment. But I guess I should be glad that at least, Kagan's evident affection for Israel isn't being used against her (yet).

(You can watch and listen to Kagan offer these comments in this video--tune in around the 27-minute mark.)

One Week After Memorial Day: Remembering Jewish Military Chaplains

As I mentioned last week, on Memorial Day, I attended a very moving ceremony at a local synagogue. And among the participants were several Jewish military chaplains.

I have to admit that this was hard for me. The last time I'd been in a temple to honor a Jewish military chaplain, I was attending the funeral of my family's beloved Rabbi Barry H. Greene. Military chaplaincy was among Rabbi Greene's many causes. He was himself a proud military chaplain; his coffin (it still feels terrible to write those two words) was flag-draped, and the director of the Jewish Chaplains Council spoke at the funeral.

It was in Rabbi Greene's memory that I began contributing to the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) Jewish Chaplains Council. Last Chanukah, instead of buying gifts for all of my adult family members (the kids still got their packages to tear open), I wrote a check to support the Council's Torahs for the Troops project, which, happily, is now very much under way, with a first Torah recently completed and brought to the Persian Gulf.

Now there's another project I want to support. When I returned home from the Memorial Day ceremony, I picked up the summer edition of Reform Judaism magazine. A letter to the editor described an effort to raise funds for a memorial to Jewish chaplains in Arlington Cemetery. That letter is not available online, but I've found some articles that describe it further.

For instance, the Jewish Journal reported earlier this spring:

"Of the 311 Jewish chaplains who served during World War II, eight rabbis died. Two rabbis lost their lives in the Vietnam War. No Jewish chaplains are known to have died while serving during the World War I or the Korean War, although research is still being done to confirm that.

Sol Moglen, an activist in New York who is leading the effort....has already raised $17,000 of the $30,000 needed to build the memorial, a granite slab that will be erected on Chaplains Hill at Arlington, where memorials for Protestant and Catholic clergy already stand."

I'm going to contact the JWB and contribute to this very worthy project. Perhaps you will, too?

A Jewish Perspective on Memorial Day

Friday's 10 Minutes of Torah offering looked ahead to today, Memorial Day in the United States. It provided some terrific background on the history of Jewish military service in the United States, and important information on ways to support Jewish (and non-Jewish) military personnel and their families. Please take some time today to read the post, reprinted on the RJ.org blog, and, if possible, do something to honor these heroes. (I'll be attended a Memorial Day Ceremony at a local synagogue later today and bringing along an item for a care package bound for an active service member.)

Notes from Around the Web (and Twitter)

Disturbing, but unsurprisingly good short story by Nathan Englander in the current New Yorker. (Englander's Q&A with Cressida Leyshon piqued my interest, too.)
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Elena Kagan, Jewish feminist.
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Daniel Levenson reviews A Safe Haven, Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, by Allis and Ronald Radosh
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via @JewishPub RT @KarBenPub Mazel Tov to Association of @JewishLibraries President-Elect Heidi Estrin! http://bit.ly/dpxb7B #Jewish#books
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via @bookoflifepod A brand new blog for folks who write Jewish kidlit! Cool! http://bit.ly/aaw6pA
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via @JewishIdeas A new book narrates the Jewish history of North Carolina http://www.jidaily.com/uXfrUCkqI/t
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Finally, please help me choose the author photo for my forthcoming short story collection, Quiet Americans!

Shabbat Shalom!

On Yom HaShoah

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. And, as is customary this time of year, the Jewish press has been offering us a great deal of Holocaust-related material to read and consider. For me, one of this year's most important contributions is The Jewish Week's article (by staff writer Steve Lipman) on financially needy Holocaust survivors.

"On the streets of Jerusalem, their plight is well chronicled, and even debated in the corridors of power in the Knesset. It is a well-told story across Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union, too, where a frayed social safety net affords little protection.

But here in New York, probably the world’s wealthiest Jewish community, the story of needy Holocaust survivors exists beyond the media’s glare. The overall level of Jewish poverty here — exacerbated by the economic downturn — has come into much sharper relief of late in the wider Jewish community. Soup kitchens have opened, UJA-Federation has launched a major recession-fighting initiative and reports have trumpeted unprecedented numbers of Jews living a paycheck or two from financial ruin.

Yet the plight of Shoah survivors — most of them in Brooklyn — struggling to eke out an existence remains stubbornly out of view. 'It is a totally unknown problem,” says Louise Greilsheimer, senior vice president for agency and external relations at UJA-Federation.'"

Well, for my family, it isn't an entirely unknown problem. We have supported The Blue Card, one of the resource organizations cited alongside the article, for years. My sister has served on The Blue Card's board. As I've mentioned, I plan to donate portions of proceeds from the sale of my story collection, Quiet Americans, to The Blue Card, too.

But there is so much need. This article just reminded me. Whether you're also being reminded, or you're learning about the plight of these elderly people for the first time, won't you please consider, today, contributing to one of the organizations mentioned by The Jewish Week?

"The Conference on Material Jewish Claims against Germany ([646] 536-9100; claimscon.org) funds more than 100 Jewish organizations, primarily Jewish family and children’s service agencies, in more than 20 states.

In the last decade, the Claims Conference came under attack from survivors, who complained about its lack of transparency and accountability, and its funding of educational programs at the expense of survivors’ immediate needs. In response to the criticisms, the Claims Conference has changed many of its operating procedures, decreasing the amount of its annual grants to educational projects from 20 percent to about 13 percent.

The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty ([212] 453-9500; metcouncil.org) coordinates services for survivors provided by a local network of Jewish community councils and other agencies. These services include kosher food programs, minor home repairs, transportation and home care.

The Blue Card ([212] 239-2251; bluecardfund.org) was founded to assist indigent refugees from Nazi Europe and now provides modest stipends to nearly 1,900 indigent survivors each month, 80 percent in the New York area.

Selfhelp Community Services ([866] 735-1234; selfhelp.net) is the largest provider of services to survivors in North America, offering 'enhanced case management services' for home health care, guardianship and financial management, and assistance accessing benefits and government entitlements.

iVolunteer, ([646] 461-7748; ivolunteerny.com) coordinates a visitation-companionship program for survivors.

The New York Legal Assistance Group ([212]613-5000; nylag.org) has a Holocaust Compensation Assistance Program that helps survivors obtain legal information about various benefits.

The Project for Holocaust Survivors of the Bikur Cholim of Boro Park ([718] 438-2020; info@bikurcholimbp.com) has a special outreach to childless survivors.

Project Dorot ([212]769-2850; dorotusa.org) on the Upper West Side and Project Ezra ([212]982-4124; projectezra.org) on the Lower East Side number several Holocaust survivors among their elderly clients."

Thank you.

Next JBC Twitter Book Club: April 27

The Jewish Book Council has announced its next lunchtime book discussion title: Dara Horn's All Other Nights. The author will participate in the chat, which will take place on Tuesday, April 27, beginning at 1 p.m. (If you're not yet on Twitter, be sure to sign up soon to give your account time to activate fully.) Details here.

Filmmaker Pierre Sauvage in NYC

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend an extraordinary "double-feature" at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Here's how the two films--both from acclaimed filmmaker Pierre Sauvage--were billed:

And Crown Thy Good: Varian Fry in Marseille (USA, forthcoming in 2011, digital video)

Sauvage presents a preview of his documentary about the most successful private American rescue effort during the Nazi era. The mission led by a New York intellectual Varian Fry helped some 2,000 people escape from France, including many scholars and artists.

Not Idly By: Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust (USA, 2009, digital video, 40 minutes)

Post-screening discussion with Pierre Sauvage interviewed by author and Vanity Fair writer-at-large Marie Brenner.

This film presents the challenging testimony of a militant Palestinian Jew who spent the war years in the U.S. leading a group that struggled to make saving the Jews of Europe an American objective. The controversial Peter Bergson is given his posthumous say as he castigates American Jewish leaders at the time for failing to pressure the American government to save European Jews.

I've been a fan of Pierre Sauvage's work since I saw Weapons of the Spirit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts 20 years ago. (A paper I wrote about that film and Louis Malle's Au revoir les enfants helped convince an esteemed professor to take me on as an undergraduate thesis advisee; I am proud to still count that professor as one of my dearest friends.) And having the chance to see Marie Brenner interview him was an additional lure (and kept me going to the Museum of Jewish Heritage even when the NYC subway system seemed determined to stop me).

The Varian Fry film is not yet complete. Fry's story, with which I became familiar in my doctoral research on Franco-American relations during the WWII era, is one that should certainly be better known. The excerpt we saw on Sunday was great; I look forward to seeing the completed film.

The Peter Bergson film is, in Brenner's words, "shocking." Yes, it can be difficult (and unfair) to judge others' actions when separated by decades. And, as with so much else related to the war years, one is ill-advised to make categorical statements. But after seeing this film, it's hard not to think that American Jews--particularly American Jews in high places--could have done more to save their coreligionists in Europe. Peter Bergson's story is deeply disturbing. Screenings will continue this spring at various film festivals (Los Angeles, Toronto, Warsaw, Zagreb are currently listed). Try to see it.

Notes from Around the Web

Benjamin Ivry's superb article on a new exhibit about Romanian-French poet (and critic and filmmaker) Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944) inspired me to revisit the Web site of the museum at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris, where the exhibit runs through the end of January. If you read French (I promise not to make French proficiency a prerequisite for appreciating My Machberet), I encourage you to go over and check out elements of the exhibit yourself (unfortunately, this material does not appear to be included among the translated items on the English version of the site).
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Inside Higher Ed reports on a panel at the 2009 Modern Language Association convention: "The underlying premise of the panel was that English departments that would never allow themselves to be without experts in the literatures of many racial and ethnic groups in the United States don't think twice about failing to have a knowledge base in American Jewish literature. Further, the view of many here is that discussions about multicultural literature that ought to include Jewish writers simply don't."
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The New Jersey Jewish News gives us an extraordinary profile of Peter Hirschmann's extraordinary life (Mr. Hirschmann happens to be a member of my home congregation, and his son and I were Temple Youth Groupers together back in the day).

Notes from Around the Web

Loved this article on Jewish life in Montana. My six-year-old niece, rapidly acquiring proficiency in Hebrew, was intrigued when I told her about the dog mentioned in the article, who understands commands only in Hebrew (not in English). On the other hand, Jack Shafer is far less impressed.
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Josh Lambert's latest books column for Tablet opens with an introduction to a new book about antisemitism in 19th-century France.
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Leaping ahead to the 20th century, Ian Buruma's review essay on books about Jews--and others--in Occupied France is well worth a read.
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And in selecting the top foreign fiction for 2009 for NPR's listeners, Jessa Crispin spotlights Israeli author Gail Hareven's novel, The Confessions of Noa Weber (trans. Dalya Bilu). A choice I applaud.

Visit to the Museum of Jewish Heritage

I'm embarrassed to admit that my visit to the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Sunday was my very first to that incredible institution.

In addition to the permanent core exhibition, I wanted to see two temporary offerings: "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges" and "The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service." Each would have been well worth the trip (and admission) on its own.

I encourage everyone to go to the Museum and see these exhibitions themselves, but even a Web visit will provide much to think about.

P.S. It appears that a film quite related to "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" will be screened in DC as part of the Washington Jewish Film Festival on Tuesday, December 8.

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!

Sami Rohr Prize Finalists Named

From the Jewish Book Council:

"A diverse group of five non-fiction authors have been named as finalists for the 2010 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the newest, most significant and largest monetary award of its kind. The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature awards $100,000 to its top winner, with a $25,000 Choice Award given to its first runner-up. It is administered under the auspices of the Jewish Book Council.

[The] announcement caps a year-long process of reviewing books by a select panel of judges. On December 16th, the finalists will meet with the non-fiction judges of the Sami Rohr Prize in New York, and the winners will be announced at the end of January. The 2010 award ceremony will be held in Jerusalem on March 31st.

This year’s finalists for the fourth annual Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature are:

* Lila Corwin Berman – Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity (University of California Press)

* Ari Y. Kelman – Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States (University of California Press)

* Kenneth B. Moss – Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Harvard University Press)

* Danya Ruttenberg – Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Beacon Press)

* Sarah Abrevaya Stein – Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce (Yale University Press)

Chosen from a pool of twenty-five entries, this year’s finalists represent important emerging voices in Jewish life and thought. The subject matter of the finalists’ work include the role that rabbis and Jewish intellectuals have played in forming American public identity, a candid and quirky spiritual memoir, the Jewish renaissance in Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution, the involvement of Jews in the international feather trade and Yiddish radio in America."

To read the full press release, please click here.

Connecticut Review Call for Academic Essays on "Jewish Identity and Culture in Mainstream America"

"Jewish literature is a vital piece of what has come to be considered important American literature. Many authors of Jewish descent have chronicled their experiences as immigrants living in America, as well as their experiences living as Jewish- Americans and establishing a Jewish identity in a culture that is predominantly of European descent. How has Jewish identity manifested itself in literature? How has it influenced other American authors in their writing? Is the concept of a Jewish identity still recognizable in literature today?

CT Review is looking for academic essays on the works of Allen Ginsberg, Elie Wiesel, and Bob Dylan exploring how Jewish identity has manifested itself in American culture and literature, as well as an address on how Jewish culture and identity have influenced American literature and whether or not it has assimilated with American culture and become unrecognizable in society today."

Deadline is March 1, 2010. For the full CFP, please click here.

Veterans' Day Event: Alison Buckholtz at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington

Speaking of Veterans' Day, Alison Buckholtz, author of Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War, will be the speaker at a drop-in lunch and lecture tomorrow (Wednesday, 11/11), at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington. "On this Veterans’ Day, take a unique look into the role of a military wife as she speaks candidly about her family’s struggles, triumphs and the culture shock as Jews in the military during her husband’s wartime deployment on an aircraft carrier." $8 lecture only, $18 lunch and lecture. Details here.

Notes from Around the Web

The Jewish Week reports that author Jonathan Safran Foer is working on a Haggadah, which will also include contributions from other Jewish writers. Expect it to be available in time for Passover 2011, from Little, Brown.
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As Veterans' Day approaches, this column from Deborah Dash Moore reminds us of "The World That Jewish Veterans Built." And I am thinking especially of two Jewish veterans who remain in my heart: my grandfather, Sam Dreifus, and my rabbi and friend, Barry H. Greene.
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As a child, I read Esther Hautzig's The Endless Steppe, so I was saddened to read Hautzig's obituary earlier this week.
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Zeek's new Web site has gone live.

Notes from Around the Web

Tamar Yellin (whose Kafka in Brontëland I reviewed a few years ago) has been blogging for Jewcy, featuring excellent posts about the influences--Jewish and other--that have shaped her writing. (Thanks to the Jewish Book Council for the tip.)
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Check out this interview with fiction writer Eileen Pollack (winner of the 2008 Edward Lewis Wallant Award).
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Lilith magazine has extended the deadline for its annual fiction contest to January 1, 2010. This competition seeks "unpublished original stories with heart, soul and chutzpah illuminating issues in the lives of Jewish women" and awards $250 plus publication.
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New from Tablet: David Kaufmann's monthly column on Jewish poetry. You'll recall that I'm already a fan of Josh Lambert's weekly book column there, which most recently looked at books focused on "immigrants and émigrés."
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A beautiful, beautiful column by Gary Rosenblatt in this week's Jewish Week.

Notes from Around the Web

Thank you (and God bless) Colonel Richard Kemp.
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The Forward reports on new partnerships in Jewish media and reminds us of the Jewish heroes who serve in the U.S. military. Also from The Forward: Fall Books!
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Queensborough Community College of The City University of New York announces the opening of its new Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center.

TBR: Allison Amend's STATIONS WEST

This new interview with fiction writer Allison Amend gives us advance notice about what promises to be one of next spring's most interesting reads: Amend's forthcoming debut novel, Stations West, "an historical novel relating the lives of four generations of Jewish immigrants in Oklahoma in the mid-19th Century" that is loosely based on Amend's own ancestors. Stations West will be published by the Yellow Shoe Fiction imprint at Louisiana State University Press.

I'm really sorry that I missed the story (published in the remarkable One Story) that apparently provided the seed for the novel. But one of the things I love about One Story is its custom of interviewing authors about their published pieces, and you can learn more about the history behind "Stations West," the story in another interview with the author.

Notes from Around the Web

Read this enthusiastic review of and excerpt from Michael Chabon's new essay collection, Manhood for Amateurs.
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Josh Lambert's book news roundup for Tablet brings us "the latest in Holocaust and Lebowski scholarship."
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Meantime, Adam Kirsch recommends Leon de Winter's God's Gym, "a pulpy yet literary Dutch thriller just published in English."
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And Harvard English professor Elisa New (aka Mrs. Lawrence Summers) discusses her new (Jewish) family memoir.