Category
Books
False Alarms
Never underestimate the propensity of American Jews to scare themselves silly. Here we are, in the midst of an unprecedented Jewish renaissance, enjoying the most favorable spiritual climate in more than a century, including shelf loads of Jewish books at every Barnes & Noble, and still our leaders are playing Stephen King, terrifying themselves (and us) with grim fairy tales and devil\’s food. Here are three recent exhibits.\n
Brooks And Reiner in the Year 2000
\”Send in the Jews!\” Mel Brooks shouted, throwing the floodgatesopen for the scores of fans who valiantly fought the drizzle lastWednesday evening, Nov. 19, to meet him and his \”Your Show of Shows\”partner-in-crime, Carl Reiner.
Writing a New Chapter
The People of the Book is the Los Angeles area\’s first attempt at a Jewish book festival
Finding Gould in L.A.
Jennifer Gould\’s new book, \”Vodka,Tears and Lenin\’s Angel,\” recalls her four years in the formerSoviet Union. It could be subtitled, \”Jennifer\’s Romp in the WildEast\” or \”Fear and Loathing in the FSU.\”
The Sunflower
The story itself is a laconic autobiographical statement that not only describes Wiesenthal\’s experience as camp inmate, but joins that experience to an excruciating ethical question about forgiveness. Now that Simon Wiesenthal is a legend and an icon, his modest story seems larger, somehow, and the republication of the book is a kind of commandment to read it again.
Back in Thyme
Israel\’s newest weapon in its battle for economic well-being andworldwide acceptance is a tall, thin New Yorker with a great lambrecipe.\n\nHer name is Rozanne Gold.
On Valor, Violinists and Vacations
As Berlin bureau chief for the Boston Globe in the late 1980s andearly 1990s, Kaufman traveled widely and tracked the stories andmemories of four Jews and one Catholic, and their families, duringthe momentous 51 years.
All the Tenacity
For Robert Anthony Siegel,April is indeed the cruelest month.Siegel\’s first novel came out in April — that was kind. But so did novels by Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. That was very,very cruel.\n\nAs book reviewers wrote fevered mini-tomes, dissecting the latest works by the greats, and publishing-house publicity budgets emptied to push Saints Norm, Saul and Phil, Siegel\’s exceptionally funny and entertaining novel, \”All the Money In the World,\” received zero attention.
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