Howard Jacobson's 'Pussy': A Satirical Rant on How Trump Grabbed His Way to Power
Americans will surely recognize the preposterously incompetent and embarrassing figure Booker-winning author Jacobson has put on the page. They elected him.
Gerald Sorin
Gerald Sorin is distinguished professor of American and Jewish Studies at SUNY New Paltz. His most recent book is "Howard Fast: Life and Literature in the Left Lane."
A Holocaust Historian and 'Shoah Jew' Haunted by the Past
In 'Where Memory Leads,' eminent scholar Saul Friedlander grapples with his own issues of identity and belonging, but never finds psychological liberation.
With New Novel, Meir Shalev Moves Closer to Entering Pantheon of Israeli Greats
Told over the course of three generations, the captivating 'Two She-Bears' elevates the crime novel to a higher level, and Shalev toward his peers Amos Oz, David Grossman and A.B. Yehoshua.
Jewish Twins Take on Sadistic Nazi Doctor in Harrowing Debut Novel
Powerful and imaginative, Affinity Konar's 'Mischling' is inspired by the real-life stories of Jewish twins who endured Dr. Mengele's torturous experiments.
Yiddish-speaking 'Superheroes' Take on Stalin in Tarantino-inspired Romp
Paul Goldberg deftly blends murder with mirth in his new novel 'The Yid,' while describing the adventures of a wild and crazy gang in the virulently anti-Semitic Soviet Union of the 1950s.
Eat, Drink and Be Merry - Just Don't Mention the Holocaust
'Summer Haven' brings together in one tome scholarship, literature, memoir and reflection about the Jewish Catskills during and after WWII.
Was Abraham the World's First Jewish Legal Eagle?
Abraham's chutzpah in challenging God's authority in the case of Sodom set the stage for a long list of 'idol-shattering,' justice-seeking Jewish lawyers, Alan Dershowitz argues.
When Jews Lived the High Life in an Egyptian Paradise
Disgruntled servants and their masters, romance and seduction, anti-Semitism and opulence – all infuse Yitzhak Gormezano Goren’s novel about Sephardi Jews in 1950s Alexandria.
Academic Boycott: Free Speech or Sordid Vilification of Israel?
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement is increasing its grip on U.S. campuses, especially in post-secondary education. A definitive new anthology sees it as outright discrimination.
Can an Old Feminist Win Over Millennials, Asks New Novel
In Brian Morton’s 'Florence Gordon,’ an aging feminist encounters a new form of feminism - one in which women don’t believe loyalty to the movement requires them to deny themselves ordinary pleasure and personal fulfillment.
Immigration Novel 'Panic in a Suitcase' Unravels the American Dream
In Yelena Akhtiorskaya's clever debut novel, life in the U.S. for the Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant Nasmertov family isn’t exactly the fulfillment of a fantasy.
Cautious Optimism Despite Loss in Aharon Appelfeld's 'Suddenly Love'
Appelfeld introduces two characters who have been through the worst, but find in one another the strength to come to terms with their lives.
'Warsaw Was the Most Beautiful City'
In a heart-wrenching novel, Gwen Edelman sends an aging couple who escaped the Ghetto four decades earlier back to the Polish capital for a visit.
The Long Walk to Despair: David Grossman's New Book Elevates Grief
Unlike 'To the End of the Land,' which depicts, finally, an anguished hope, Grossman’s latest novel reads like an elegy.
Two Books, One Conflicted Man Franz Kafka, the Craving Artist
Two authors offer probing, psychologically astute portraits of the conflicted artist.
Short but Precise Takes on the Modern Human Condition
Peter Orner’s new book, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, is about ordinary people living 'heroically' screwed-up lives.
Adrift in Harvard Square
In a novel he describes as 'quite autobiographical,' Alexandria-born Andre Aciman revisits his uncertain early days in the United States, when he sought relief from his alienation in a friendship with a North African taxi driver on the run from deportation and lived in fear himself of being banished from the promised land.
When Grief Is a Family Heirloom
Is it possible to overcome the grief and anger that are passed down from one generation to another? This is one of the questions pondered by Austin Ratner in his first novel since 'The Jump Artist.’
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.
In Pursuit of Lost Glories
In his big new novel, Michael Chabon, author of ‘Kavalier and Clay’ returns with a tale of two friends and business partners who face the consequences of love, the challenges of a changing economy, and the tensions that inevitably plague interracial relations.
Paul Auster, a Man Who Has Carried a Wound
In his third memoir, Auster contemplates the fear and anxiety that possessed him as he approached his 64th birthday. His concerns will be familiar to many readers, but because he is Paul Auster, he is uniquely able to reflect on them for the rest of us.
Bernard Avishai's Complaint: Philip Roth Is a Master, Misunderstood
The Hebrew University professor takes a new look at the American writer's blockbuster 1969 novel.
‘No Place for a Guy Named Shapiro’
After it is struck by an ‘avalanche of woes,’ a family living the good life in 1970s California resettles in rural Michigan, where it learns what real problems are.
What Nathan Englander Talks About When He Talks About Jewishness
Nathan Englander says he has left behind the religious rigidity of his Orthodox upbringing. But his new volume of short stories shows that, whatever he may tell interviewers, he seems to maintain a desire to retrieve some of the meaning and coherence of tradition
Loyalty to the Cause
Gertrude Stein, as Barbara Will confirms for us in 'Unlikely Collaboration,' was a complex, experimental writer, a collector of modern art, a salon hostess to modern artists and writers, a feminist, and a lesbian.
Torn Between Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and Going Home
Tormented, cruel, full of anger - all of these described the nature of the brilliant literary critic Alfred Kazin, as revealed in this edition of a life of his journal entries; but his harshest judgments, it turns out, were generally reserved for himself
Israeli Paradise Lost - and Found?
In a first novel, veteran U.S. immigrant writer Fred Skolnik tries to pinpoint the moment when Israel lost its sense of purpose; has he found the way to regain that mission?
Film Studies / The Chills & Thrills of Cold War Cinema
In a masterful look at Hollywood and the Cold War, film critic J. Hoberman finds that during these years of high anxiety, the movies and the public mood mutually affected and molded each other.
Fiction / Passing Through
Don't waste your time trying to figure out which elements of Yoram Kaniuk's latest book are autobiographical and which are fiction. Just revel in the whirlwind of his 50-year-old stories of New York and of the great artists who may or may not have been part of his life.
In the Land of Whateverwitz
Joshua Cohen is brave, he is clearly not seeking a large audience and he writes with a mission to sow disquiet. This is admirable, and it even works - up to a point.