Posted by Naomi Firestone
Just put up a few new reviews that were printed in the latest issue of Jewish Book World. Check them out:
Orthodox Jews in America 
In Orthodox Jews in America, Jeffrey S. Gurock lovingly provides a comprehensive portrait of pious Jews in America, the “Treif Land.” He begins with Asser and Miriam Levy, the first Jewish settlers to seek their fortunes in New Amsterdam in 1655. Historical records appear to document that Asser Levy was quite concerned with his religious observance…Read On
Manhood for Amateurs
Anyone who has ever received a bad review,” writes Michael Chabon in a somewhat different context, “knows how it outlasts, by decades, the memory of a favorable word.” Well, don’t worry, Michael, nothing but favorable words will be heard here. They may not match the elegant style of your wordsmith ways, but they are, nonetheless, favorable, indeed…Read On
Bending Toward the Sun
Memoirs can be perilous for writer and reader alike, and Leslie Gilbert-Lurie tackles the genre’s pitfalls head-on by recreating both a parent’s life followed by the writer’s look at her own life. Rita (Ruchel) Gamss struggled through 1942-44 in a Polish attic…Read On
Why This World
A good biography encompasses “life and times,” so that personality as well as locale live in the reader’s mind. Why This World brings to life Clarice Lispector, a remarkable and heralded writer who lived and wrote for 54 years in Brazil, but who is largely unknown here…Read On
The Humbling
Simon Axler, a distinguished American actor in his mid-sixties, has been deserted both by his fragile wife and by his defining talent: a magical on-stage assurance which had let him listen and respond within the dramatic moment. No tricks of craft can restore this authenticity, whose loss poses the contradictory humblings of revoked career and proffered modesty…Read On
Flight from the Reich
Flight From the Reich is an important book that chronicles the difficult, often tortured paths the Jews took in their efforts to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe. It provides much-needed context and historical information to the oft-expressed question of why more Jews didn’t flee from the persecution and genocide that savaged their communities…Read On
“Israel: Left, Right, Center” (By Bob Goldfarb)
What is Israel? Through different eyes, Israel can be victim or victimizer, spiritual beacon or violent colonialist. How many Israels are there? How can one little country be so many things? Bob Goldfarb looks at three new books on the subject: Rich Cohen’s Israel Is Real
To purchase the complete issue ($12.50), please contact the Jewish Book Council office at 212-201-2920 or jbc@jewishbooks.org.
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The ProsenPeople 