Category
Books
Story of ‘Shmelf’ not welcome on every Jewish library shelf
You’d better watch out. I’m telling you why: “Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf” has come to town, and a vocal contingent of Jewish children’s librarians and other critics would like to see him hitch the first sleigh ride back to the North Pole.
Light Chanukah reading for all ages
Chanukah is “late” this year, so that gives everyone plenty of extra time to shop for gifts, including those for book-lovers.
Author sheds light on the menorah
A Star of David may appear on the flag of Israel, but a much older symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people is the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum that can be seen among the looted treasures of the Jerusalem Temple as depicted in the marble bas-relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
Eclectic array of books a holiday gift for readers
The good news in the publishing industry is that books, whether the old-fashioned or the new-fangled kind, are continuing to attract the attention of readers, which explains why there are always so many gift-giving opportunities for the holidays. As Chanukah approaches, here is a book for every taste:
Casanova bio has irresistible charms of its own
Author and journalist Laurence Bergreen is the accomplished biographer of a long list of famous people, ranging from Columbus and Marco Polo to Al Capone and Louis Armstrong.
Jewish newspaper puts best Yiddish fiction forward
If there is one fact about Isaac Bashevis Singer that signifies his remarkable achievement as a writer, it is that the Nobel Prize winner started out in America as a contributor of short pieces to the Forward, the largest Yiddish-language newspaper in the world and the newspaper of record for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia in the early to mid-20th century.
It’s funny what you can learn from Jewish humor
Jokes are no joke. Freud himself and countless other scholars have studied jokes as artifacts of human civilization and embodiments of theology, philosophy and morality.
A fearless plunge into why we’re forever ‘Haunted’
Halloween is almost here, and the time is right for Leo Braudy’s latest work of cultural history and criticism, irresistibly titled “Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds” (Yale University Press).
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