Arts & Entertainment
Festival Of Books
Need suggestions for finding the perfect book for the readers on your
Chanukah gift list? Check out these recent releases!
Gail Zimmerman
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Sandee Brawarsky
Special to the Jewish News
FICTION
Philip Roth is back this season with his
30th book, again visiting themes of aging
and mortality. The Humbling (Houghton
Mifflin), a short novel, is the story of a
leading stage actor now in his 60s, who is
losing his confidence and his talent. He
has already lost his wife, and he's contem-
plating suicide. A counterplot explores
another Roth theme: desire.
Set in Israel, Day After Night by Anita
Diamant (Simon & Shuster) is a novel
based on the true story of the rescue of a
group of women from the Atlit internment
camp in 1945. Diamant, author of The
Red Tent, follows the lives of four young
women, survivors of the Holocaust who
enter Palestine illegally and are jailed by
the British.
When Michelle Cameron was research-
ing her family history, she came to learn
about an ancestor, the 13th-century schol-
ar Rabbi Meir ben Baruch of Rothenberg.
Trying to find a way to write about his
life, she invented his wife, a pious woman
with a streak of rebelliousness. The Fruit
of Her Hands: The Story of Shira of
Ashkenaz (Pocket) is a multigenerational
novel, set in medieval Europe, as anti-
Semitism is rising. Cameron, who moved
to Israel with her family when she was a
teenager, served in the Israeli army and
now lives in New Jersey.
As far back as she could remember,
Ellen, the heroine of Debra Spark's new
novel, understood that there were two
categories of things in the world: "what
was good for the Jews and what wasn't"
A story of Midwestern Jews, Good for the
Jews (University of Michigan) is a loose
retelling of the Book of Esther. Ellen's uncle
Mose is a teacher, whose job in a progres-
sive high school is one of those things
that's considered very good for the Jews.
In Katherine Weber's humorous new
novel, True Confections (Shaye Areheart),
an 85-year-old family candy business,
"Zip's Candies:' is having some bittersweet
times as younger generations struggle to
take charge. The company is known for its
Little Sammies, Tiger Melts and Mumbo
Jumbos — names inspired by books the
immigrant founder stole from the library
in order to learn English. Weber is the
author of several previous novels, includ-
ing Triangle.
A collection of stories, by Maxim
Shrayer, Yom Kippur in Amsterdam
(Syracuse University Press) follows the
efforts of Russian-Jewish immigrants to
come to terms with their pasts as they try
to build new lives in America. The stories
are set in the author's native Russia, the
United States and Western Europe as the
characters reconnect with fellow emigres
or form relationships with Americans,
always glancing back as they look forward.
In the title story, a young Jewish man finds
Amsterdam "a beautiful place for a Jew to
atone." The author chairs the department
of Slavic and Eastern Languages at Boston
College. He spent almost nine years as a
refusenik before he was able to leave the
Soviet Union, along with his parents. His
writing has qualities of humor, soulfulness
and insight.
Sex, Drugs, 6 Gefilte Fish, edited by
Shana Liebman, foreword by A.J. Jacobs
(Grand Central), is the first book pub-
lishing effort from Heeb Magazine. The
selections are drawn from their onstage
literary series, where writers and perform-
ers — including Andy Borowitz, Lisa Kron
and Ben Greenman — tell seven-minute
stories.
SPIRITUALITY
Oneness is the subject of Everything is
God: The Path of Nondual Judaism by Jay
Michaelson (Trumpeter), who upholds the
belief that God is not separate from us, that
everyone and everything manifests God.
Michaelson, author of God in Your Body and
the chief editor of the online journal Zeek,
teaches Kabbalah and spiritual practice in
many venues. He writes with clarity, passion
and a poetic sensibility, opening up sacred
subjects.
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner quotes Mark
Twain in the epigraph to his new book:
"Courage is not the absence of fear but
the mastery of fear:' In Conquering Fear:
Living Boldly in an Uncertain World
(Knopf), he acknowledges that fear — of
many things — is inescapable but shouldn't
be life defining. He guides readers in his clas-
sic, comforting, life-affirming style. Rabbi
Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen
to Good People and 10 other books, is rabbi
laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Mass.
"What is it about Judaism that is trans-
fixing enough to have kept a brilliant,
fractious, bickering, relentlessly skeptical
people alive for 3,000 years, made them
the senior nation of the Western world,
and turned them into a marvel and (too
often) an obsession for so many of their
fellow human beings?" scholar David
Gelernter asks in the opening of his new
book, Judaism: A Way of Being (Yale). In
answering this question and facing what
he sees as a shrinking American Jewish
community, Gelernter looks at Judaism
as a way of life and explores its spiritual
and intellectual structure. A professor of
computer science at Yale and the author
of several books, Gelernter raises and
discusses questions about Jewish beliefs
on the sanctity of everyday life, man and
God, the meaning of sexuality and fam-
ily, and good, evil and the nature of God's
justice. For the author, Judaism is a most
profound and beautiful achievement. The
book is illustrated with images he painted
and assembled that are central to his text.
Festival Of Books on page 72
December 10 R 2009
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