Michael Wex, the Toronto writer, raconteur and Yiddishist whose previous non-fiction book Born to Kvetch climbed to the top of the bestseller lists, now presents us with an equally learned and funny manual about how to be a human being — humane, considerate, and wise enough to do the right thing. How to Be a…
All Other Nights is Horn’s best yet
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Dara Horn’s third novel combines her trademark cleverness, depth of Jewish knowledge, and strong literary sensibility into a fast-paced adventure-intrigue in which Jewish characters make a significant difference in the American Civil War. Jacob Rappaport, the 19-year-old son of a New York industrialist, joins the Union Army rather than accept the poor match his father,…
Sherman, Wiseman, Michaels, Shrayer (for Chanukah)
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Anyone who cares about the state of contemporary Jewish writing should not neglect to read What the Furies Bring, a new book of essays by Toronto essayist-poet Kenneth Sherman (Porcupine’s Quill). By itself, Sherman’s choice of subject matter is compelling. His essay topics include “Yiddish and the Jewish Canon,” “Anne Frank and the Search for…
Going Gentle Into That Good Night
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The Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, were the stuff of urban legend. A couple of eccentrics, they lived in a grand Fifth Avenue brownstone left to them by their parents who died when the boys were young adults. Langley, wounded by mustard gas in the First Great War, became a classic hoarder of junk from…
Harry Bernstein’s ‘Invisible Wall’
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Harry Bernstein was 96 years old when his memoir, “The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers,” was published to great critical acclaim two years ago. Last year he followed up his success with a second memoir, “The Dream,” which similarly has attracted much favourable attention and legions of readers. This year, at 98,…
Beider on Polish-Jewish surnames
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What’s in a name — or, more precisely, a Jewish surname? No one, it seems, has ever been able to answer that question with as much scientific methodology and linguistic and historical background as Alexander Beider, a 32-year-old Moscow-born statistician who emigrated about 1990 to Paris, where he lives and works as a computer programmer.…
Beider on Russian-Jewish Surnames
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Alexander Beider, who is arguably the world’s foremost expert on Jewish names, has revised and updated his 1993 Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire, a four-year task that he undertook knowing it would probably not generate adequate renumeration for him. If that proves to be the case, he may yet take comfort in…
On Graphic Novels
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So many books, so little time. It was in the year 1859 that British literary critic David Masson noted that something astounding was happening to English literature. Two novels were being published in London each week, Masson observed, making it impossible for readers to keep up with the entirety of modern fiction. Henceforth, each person…
On Jewish Memoirs and Autobiography
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On the several occasions when I’ve enrolled in creative-writing or memoir-writing workshops, usually with the aim of finishing a particular story that I’ve written, I’ve always been struck by the wealth of literary talent seated around the table. This has generally come as a pleasant surprise, since I’ve also observed that few people possess the…
Stern’s Frozen Rabbi
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Fifteen-year-old Bernard Karp finds a strange heirloom in the food freezer in the basement of his family’s suburban Memphis home: a greenish block of ice containing a frozen rabbi, a Jewish Rip van Winkle lying in peaceful repose as if flash-frozen in the midst of a relaxing afternoon shluff. Confronted at the dinner table, Bernie’s…
