My Father Is A Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud, by Janna Malamud Smith (Counterpoint Berkeley) One hundred years after his birth in 1914, acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Bernard Malamud has been surprisingly overlooked by biographers — in large part because his family had blocked access to his private papers. But in recent years…
Category: Biography
Review: The Rise of Abraham Cahan, by Seth Lipsky
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From the Canadian Jewish News, January 2014 Ninety years ago, New York newspaper editor Abraham Cahan was at the epicentre of international Jewish affairs — not a newsmaker himself but an opinion-maker, someone who had an extraordinary and powerful influence on the Jewish masses in New York, around the Diaspora and in pre-state Israel. As…
Remembering screenwriter Robert Riskin
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Certainly you’ve seen of some of the movies that he wrote — the list includes Lady for a Day (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), You Can’t Take It With You (1938) and Meet John Doe (1941) — but you may be forgiven if you don’t…
Portrait of Walter Winchell (1936)
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Archivist of Gothomania By Hye Bossin From the Canadian Jewish Standard, September 1936 New York’s prize piece of human curiosa is Walter Winchell. He climbed over Shaw, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, etc., to top the New York Post’s poll. Suckers stare at him in night clubs instead of the floor show. You are likely to hear…
Profile: Jerry & Naomi Goldenberg
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From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, Toronto, Spring 2013 It is a busy day for Gerald and Naomi Goldenberg as they help plan some last-minute details for the upcoming wedding of one of their grandchildren. But even so, they kindly take a few minutes to sit down with me in the den of their Briar Hill…
Joe Salsberg: A Life of Commitment, by Gerald Tulchinsky
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BOOK REVIEW: Joe Salsberg: A Life of Commitment, by Gerald Tulchinsky (University of Toronto Press, June 2013) It was said that it would take Joe Salsberg three to five hours to stroll along Spadina Avenue from College to Queen because he couldn’t venture more than a few steps without meeting someone and having a conversation. The…
Profile: Elias Rogers, Canada’s “King Coal” (1913)
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Fame and Fortune Came to Canada’s Biggest “King Coal” When He Fought American Trust Elias Rogers Began Life as Farm Lad in York County — Earned First Wages in a Lumber Yard — A Quaker by Faith — Once Ran for Mayor in Toronto From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 20, 1913 Passing along King…
Book review: The Dentist of Auschwitz
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From The Canadian Jewish News, 2001 SS commander Otto Moll had a tooth-ache, and so visited the dentist of Auschwitz, a Jewish inmate from Dobra, Poland named Berek Jakubowicz. Settling into the chair, the pulled out his revolver and pointed it at the emaciated attendant. “Don’t try anything stupid, dentist,” he warned. “Herr Hauptscharfuhrer,” the…
Emma Goldman, Toronto’s anarchist guest (1926)
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From the Toronto Star Weekly, December 31, 1926 by Frederick Griffin You can’t imagine the gigantic United States with all its doughboys and buddies being scared of a woman. It is like a man being scared of a mouse. And yet we have the fact that they were so frightened over there by the presence…
Great-granddaughter writes wonderful bio of Jacob Gordin
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◊ Finding the Jewish Shakespeare, The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin, by Beth Kaplan, has been newly released in paperback by Syracuse University Press, Spring 2012. One of the great moments in Yiddish theatre occurred the evening the curtain opened upon actor Jacob Adler in the role of “the Jewish King Lear,” as envisioned by…
