Who We Are
Michal Lemberger
Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) a Jewish American Writer. Ed. Derek Rubin (Schoken Books, 2005) $25, 368 pp.
IN 1963, PHILIP ROTH took on his critics with a scathing essay responding to attacks that he had supposedly portrayed Jews in a negative light. He accused them of many things: timidity, paranoia, self-pity, [...]
Memoir and Family Redemption
David Biale
Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. trans. Nicholas de Lange. New York: Harcourt, 2004. 544 pp.
EVERY WRITER OF fiction mines to one extent or another his or her own life, turning reality into food for the imagination. But when a writer turns to his own biography, he can do the opposite: use [...]
Exegesis and Ritual Cookbook
Jill Hammer
Vanessa Ochs, Sarah Laughed: Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and Stories of Biblical Women (McGraw-Hill, 2004) 233 pp., $24.95
Sarah Laughed: Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and Stories of Biblical Women, by Vanessa Ochs, is a complex and multilayered journey through the spirit.Ochs has set out to retell stories of biblical women, weave them with [...]
Artist, Wanderer, Jew
Matthew Hoffman
Benjamin Harshav, Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative (Stanford University Press, 2004) 1026 pp. $39.95
BENJAMIN HARSHAV’S monumental new book, Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative , is an innovative attempt to combine narrative biography and documentary history. The author weaves a tapestry of Chagall’s autobiographical writings and personal correspondences and [...]
A Magisterial Volume
Neil Gillman
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Heavenly Torah As Refracted through the Generations , Edited and Translated with Commentary by Gordon Tucker with Leonard Levin. (New York, London: Continuum, 2004) $95, 848 pp.
FROM THE MOMENT this hefty (800 plus pages) volume, with its striking scarlet cover, arrived in my office some three weeks ago, the reactions of [...]
Tolerance
Marc Gopin
Adam B. Seligman, Modest Claims: Dialogues and Essays on Tolerance and Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press: 2004) $40, 216pp.
FOR THE FOLLOWING two reasons, Modest Claims: Dialogues and Essays on Tolerance and Tradition is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. First, the book includes a cast of characters who have [...]
Where Only Prophets Dare to Tread
Harold M. Schulweis
In a passage from the Talmud ( Makkoth 24a), Moses’ blessing in Deuteronomy is cited: “And Israel dwells in safety alone.” The Prophet Amos arose to revoke that dubious blessing: “Oh God, cease, I beseech you! How shall Israel dwell all alone.” Then the Lord repented concerning Moses’ questionable blessing and declared, “That [...]
Midrashic Tales
Jonathan Kirsch
Joel Cohen, Moses: A Memoir (Paulist Press, 2003) $19.95, 155 pp.
Marek Halter, Sarah (Crown Publishers, 2004) $22.00, 296 pp.
“Midrash” is a term that has come to be applied to almost any effort to reconsider and re-imagine our sacred texts and the men and women who are depicted in their pages. In that sense, The [...]
Out of Poverty
Daniel Sokatch
David K. Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004) $25, 319 pp.
By the time you read this, almost 4,000 low-wage luxury hotel workers in Los Angeles will likely be engaged in a fight for their economic lives. After months of fruitless union contract negotiations, the hotels have declared an [...]
Spiritual Guidance and Social Change
by David Arnow
David Bornstein, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas (Oxford University Press, 2004) $28, 320 pp.
God in All Moments: Mystical and Practical Spiritual Wisdom from Hasidic Masters, edited and translated by Or Rose with Ebn D. Leader (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004) $16.95, 163 pp.
DAVID BORNSTEIN writes with [...]
