Special Sections: Literary Guides

Clean Sweep

Meir Shalev remembers his grandmother, a pioneer Martha Stewart, and that very American vacuum cleaner.

Sandee Brawarsky
Jewish Week Book Critic
11/22/2011
My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner

In some circles, Meir Shalev’s grandparents would be considered Zionist royalty: They were among the founders and first settlers of Israel’s earliest agricultural cooperative, or moshav, Nahalal, established in 1921. They lived simply and honorably and worked hard, sometimes in poverty, tending the land and their chickens.

The award-winning Israeli writer was born in 1948 on Nahalal. While he grew up mostly in Jerusalem, he visited the moshav regularly. His mother always reminded him of his pedigree, that he too was a son of Nahalal.

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FALL LITERARY GUIDE 2011

The Book on Israel A new read on the Jewish state, from Oz and Shalev to a biography of Jerusalem and a take on the country’s internal conflicts.

11/22/2011
LITERARY GUIDE Fall 2011
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The Wizardry Of Amos Oz

In his latest meticulously crafted novel, Israel’s most famous living writer evokes a profound existential unease.

Eric Herschthal
Staff Writer
11/22/2011

In Amos Oz’s new novel, or more accurately novel-in-short-stories, the sense of dread, of profound existential unease, is unmistakable. No character in Oz’s fictional Israeli village, Tel Ilan, where all the stories in “Scenes from Village Life” are set, is happy. No one is even remotely content with his lot.

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Coming Apart At The Seams?

Gershom Gorenberg looks at the internal conflicts that threaten to ‘unmake’ Israel.

Jerome A. Chanes
Special To The Jewish Week
11/22/2011
Veteran Israeli writer Gershom Gorenberg.

‘The other Arab-Israeli conflict,” a locution famously visited upon us by Middle East analyst Steven Spiegel, is well applied to “The Unmaking of Israel” (HarperCollins), Gershom Gorenberg’s cogent and incisive new book. Indeed, Gorenberg’s very first chapter — on the well-remembered but little-understood Altalena Affair — tells us all we need to know about the internal conflicts in the Yishuv (the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine) and in the new state.

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‘Prime’ Biographies

The life and times of David Ben-Gurion and Ariel Sharon, two prime ministers who define Israel.

Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
11/22/2011
Two new books recount the live of former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and David Ben-Gurion.

In Jewish publishing, the Year of the Prime Minister continues. On the heels of Yehuda Avner’s exhaustive 2010 “The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership” (Toby Press), an insider’s look at the lives and careers of four world-stage Israelis, come two more profiles of Israeli prime ministers by authors who knew them well — in one case, a son; in the other, a longtime adviser and confidante.

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A Montefiore Takes On Jerusalem

With a family pedigree and a sharp political eye, Simon Sebag Montefiore tries to get at the ‘truth’ of the complex city.

Eric Herschthal
Special To The Jewish Week
11/22/2011
Montefiore Jerusalem

When Simon Sebag Montefiore was writing his new history, “Jerusalem: The Biography” (Knopf) he knew his objectivity would inevitably be questioned. After all, the author was not only Jewish, but, well, a Montefiore, one of England’s most respected Jewish families, and one with deep personal ties to the city.

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Gained In Translations

A translator (and fiction writer) on the tricky task of turning Israeli novels into English.

Evan Fallenberg
Special To The Jewish Week
11/22/2011

Amuch-discussed fact in the publishing world is the following statistic: only about 3 percent of all books published annually in the U.S. are works translated from another language. The stats for literary fiction and poetry are even more dismal, at 0.7 percent. So if you are an excellent writer writing in Danish or Polish or Chinese, a writer with good reviews, even a faithful following of readers, your work may never see the light of day in English.

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High Drama, On And Off Stage

First English-language biography of Sarah Bernhardt
in decades captures her complicated life.

Sandee Brawarsky
Jewish Week Book Critic
11/16/2010
Robert Gottlieb’s “Sarah” reflects the highs and lows of Sarah Bernhardt’s life, which gained international renown a century ago

When my sisters and I were overly dramatic while growing up, we were lovingly rebuked, “You’re a regular Sarah Bernhardt.” We weren’t the only ones to hear this line, which echoed across suburbs and cities.

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Top Jewish Chefs, Back In The Kitchen

The latest fare — from teen food to leek terrine —
courtesy of Susie Fishbein, Jamie Geller and Joan Nathan.

Amy Spiro
Editorial Assistant
11/16/2010
Kosher cooks have a plethora of options for new cookbooks, from established names like Joan Nathan.

Whether they want to prepare haute cuisine or instant kugel or or vegan cholent, kosher cooks looking for recipes and inspiration today have plenty of new books to pick from — thanks to several top Jewish chefs.

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Paris, When It Fizzles

In reworking Henry James’ ‘The Ambassadors,’ Cynthia Ozick
strikes a chord for America against a post-Shoah Europe.

Beth Kissileff
Special To The Jewish Week
11/16/2010
New world symphony: In “Foreign Bodies,” novelist Cynthia Ozick views post-war America as more civilized than Europe.

What inspires an artist? Cynthia Ozick’s new novel, “Foreign Bodies” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), is in part an attempt to answer that much vexed question, though as we know from her prior writing, there is never one simple answer. Inspiration can come as an angry bang on a piano is translated to a symphony, as it does in this novel.

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