The Forward Surveys the 2010 Sami Rohr Finalists

Posted by Naomi Firestone

The Forward surveys each of the 2010 Sami Rohr Prize finalists: http://www.forward.com/articles/119655/

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Naomi Firestone

From Jewcy.com:

Thanksgiving Cooking with JDub’s Director of Events

JDub’s Director of Events, Adam Teeter and his fiancee Naomi are planning their wedding – and their new life together. Naomi was raised in a kosher home, and so Adam has decided to learn to make some great kosher recipes…Read On

(As the cameraman for this video, I couldn’t resist posting…enjoy!)

YM Books

Posted by Naomi Firestone

We just received word about a new endeavor from Yaldah Magazine, a magazine for Jewish girls, by Jewish
girls, has expanded to YM Books, offering a variety of books for Jewish girls.

The first release is The Yaldah Year: Crafts & Recipes for Every Month of the Jewish Year, a colorful Jewish craft and recipe book for girls, by girls.

Two more books will be released following The Yaldah Year: Crafts & Recipes for Every Month of the Jewish Year:

One Is Not A Lonely Number–a young adult novel
Teen Talk–a compilation of stories, advice, interviews, and fresh perspectives on issues relevant to observant Jewish girls.

YALDAH Magazine was founded five years ago by Leah Larson at age 13.

For more information, please visit www.ymbooks.org.

Moment Magazine’s Intriguing Books of 2009

Posted by Naomi Firestone

Moment Magazine lists its “Intriguing Books of 2009″:

Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West
Michael A. Ledeen (Truman Talley)

Eating Animals
Jonathan Safran Foer (Little, Brown)

The Clothes On Their Backs
Linda Grant (Scribner)

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
Francine Prose (HarperCollins)

Homer & Langley
E. L. Doctorow (Random House)

Israel, One Land, One People, One Dream
Emmanuel T. Santos (Jewish National Fund of Melbourne Australia)

To read the comments on each book, please click here.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere/News…

Posted by Naomi Firestone

NETWORK author Jessica Handler (Invisible Sisters) reports on her experience at a Jewish Book Festival for Erika Dreifus of My Machberet:

About a month ago, my good friend G. asked me, “So, what is the Jewish platform for your book?”

She’d read Invisible Sisters, and that evening we were practicing our digital video connection for my upcoming visit to her book group, in a city 700 miles from mine. I was surprised that she asked about Invisible Sisters and Judaism. She is Modern Orthodox, a Jew by choice. She sends out email Purim cards every year, photos of herself, her husband, and their children, decked out as King Ahashverus, Queen Esther, and (boooo) Haman. She makes an effort to find the Jewish connection in every part of her life. Is it so difficult to locate that connection in this memoir? Read On.

Ruth Schuster looks at Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle for Haaretz.

Devra Furst reviews Janet Perr’s Yiddish for Babies: A Language Primer for Your Little Pitselin her article “The Pitselech Are Reviving Yiddish.”

Jacob Berkman, the JTA’s Fundermentalist, reviews Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon’s The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan.

Jake Marmer discusses Chana Bloch’s recent collection of poetry Blood Honey.