Jerusalem International Book Fair | 2013-| JIBF

Jerusalem International Book Fair | 2013

The wonder of Shai Agnon, now in vivid image

Shay Charka’s graphic novel doesn’t settle for a simplistic illustration of Agnon’s stories, but rather proffers its own bold interpretation.
By Masha Zur Glozman
How I learned to love ‘The Kuzari’

Micah Goodman asks us to go back to Yehuda Halevy’s medieval treatise and read it in a different way: not as a book expressing Jewish supremacy, but as a continuing dialogue about universal, humanistic trends integral to Judaism.
By Yuval Elbashan
How a young Israeli woman became an acclaimed English author

Shani Boianjiu grew up in Kfar Vradim and never imagined the success her first novel would have. In an interview with Haaretz, she confides: 'Ninety-nine percent of what I write wouldn’t happen'.
By David B. Green
The Yiddish world of shtetl America

Israeli literature was willing to embrace poignant stories in Yiddish about shtetl life, but had a hard time stomaching ones about secure Jewish existence in America. The new short-story anthology ‘America’ helps fill in the gaps.
By Shira Stav
In Jerusalem (the City of Books), a Spaniard is crowned

Antonio Munoz Molina accepts the Jerusalem Prize at the Jerusalem International Book Fair on Sunday, rejecting pressure to culturally boycott Israel in protest of its policies.
By Ilene Prusher
Great writers in tiny spaces

The Jerusalem Conference of Jewish Writers, Kisufim, often squeezes great writers into small rooms all over Jerusalem providing for good conversations but not too much room to move.
By Ilene Prusher
Rabbi Amsellem’s indictment: the story of a Shas breakaway, in his own words

The book of conversations with Rabbi Chaim Amsellem could just as easily have been called ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Problems of Haredi Society But No Haredim Would Tell You.’ Now there’s someone who will.
By Shahar Ilan
Yearning for the light

Nurit Zarchi creates an exquisite imaginary kingdom that seems so natural we can easily imagine the sight of two giraffes riding a tandem bicycle.
By Anna Herman
Around the world in 2,000 words

A reading of Dan Daor’s book of essays and journeys is an experience of traveling the world in the company of a scholar. Even the red-light district in Amsterdam stirs in him deep musings, in this case on the Dutch history of tolerance.
By Yaad Biran
A kingdom of children in a dystopian Israel

This sometimes mythical tale about children – albeit aged 18 and up who have been granted the right to kill and be killed – is dark and surprisingly funny.
By David B. Green
A.B. Yehoshua takes on the iconography of guilt and atonement

Israeli filmmaker Yair Moses, the central figure in A.B. Yehoshua’s newly translated latest novel, arrives in Spain to receive an honor and a prize at the end of a long, successful career, and finds himself having to engage in some unexpected self-reflection
By Akin Ajayi
From suffering in Ethiopia to a new life in Israel, a young woman tells her story

While waiting to be airlifted from Ethiopia to Israel in the 1980s, Wuditu was seized from a refugee camp and became a child slave. At Wuditu’s request, Judie Oron shares the story of the girl she rescued.
By Allison Kaplan Sommer
OMG I loved that book!

In providing a space for literary discussion beyond the hallowed pages of old media, book blogs made it possible to chat with strangers who shared the same taste. Now those venerable publications have their own blogs and bloggers’ bylines are appearing in print.
By Danna Harman
The words going forth from Jerusalem

The Jerusalem International Book Fair turns 50 this year, and adjusts to life without its longtime leader Zev Birger. Fair number 25 offers the book-loving public numerous opportunities to be exposed to writers who are very far from being the usual suspects.
By David B. Green
Reading between the lines: How Amos Oz views Jewish identity

In their jointly written investigation into the defining essence of the Jewish people, the father-and-daughter team of Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger come up with definition so reductive that one may end up no wiser regarding who’s a member of the club.
By Gerald Sorin