#Jewish Literature

[jewelleria]

“But there are nuances to sadistic barbarity against Jews, we are told, and sometimes gang-raping Jewish women is actually a movement for human rights. It hardly seems fair to call people anti-Semitic if they want only half of the world’s Jews to die. The phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” currently chanted at universities across America, perhaps widens the net a tiny bit—but really, who can say? Even the phrase “Gas the Jews,” chanted at a rally organized by NYU students and faculty, is so very ambiguous. How dare those whiny Jews presume to know what’s in other people’s hearts? It remains unclear why anti-Semitism should matter only when it is lethal, or if so, how many unambiguously anti-Semitic murders would be necessary for anti-Semitism to be happening outside whiny Jews’ heads. A realistic estimate might be 6 million. Even then, Jews have had to spend the past 80 years collecting documentation to prove it.”

— Dara Horn, Why the Most Educated People in America Fall For Anti-Semitic Lies

[salvadorbonaparte]

Help save the Yiddish Translation Fellowship Program

I wanted to ask my followers and fellow language enthusiasts to donate to the Yiddish Book Center so that they can continue to train translators and make Yiddish literature accessible (or at least share this post if possible) 🐐

[bandi-off]

Good jewish literature? Looking for recs 👀

EDIT:

Gosh, thank you EVERYONE for your contributions so far!! I didn't think for a second I'd get so much and so various recommendations, it is lovely to open the app and always have some new notes on this post of mine

As someone who's in his Very very first steps of conversion, I want to refreshen my reading experiences and leave behind the heavily Christian-influenced classics (which is not entirely wrong on its own!, it's just the same old, same old experience for me rn) and get in touch with more recent jewish literature, so I'm very thankful for helping me with this. I might pop up in later edits with my own recommendations!

[mysharona1987]

But this guy is honestly as cold as fuck.

“If one person dying is a tragedy in a war, then what is a million deaths? Nothing at all.”

Um, I think it might mean something to those 999,999 innocent people and their families.

[lihyot-am-chofshi-beartzeinu]

It finally arrived!

[sopranoentravesti]

Alright, jumblr and gentiles…

If you’ve read his work, please let me know which books in the tags

[adiradirim]

Excerpts from Henri Raczymow's "Memory Shot Through With Holes," the text of a presentation given by him to a colloquium of Jewish writers held at the Sorbonne on 12 January 1986

[fdelopera]

I started reading When the Angels Left the Old Country after I saw it recommend on your blog and I’m OBSESSED and I just think EVERYONE needs to know about it. The flavor, the Jewish, Yiddish, alter velt flavor of this book- impeccable.

Literally excuse me??? Screaming??? At this opening??? When do we ever get books like this?? Well written, plotted, just chef’s kiss??? Talk about a book that makes you proud to be a part of its heritage (disclaimer I have only read through chapter 4 lol).

i know. ohhhh i know. it's that feeling of recognition. the feeling of the familiar cadence of Yiddish that comes through, even in the English. it's the folk traditions, barely remembered from childhood. it's the way that this little angel and demon are Jewish. the little angel is genderless, and refers to itself as "it". the little demon is one of the sheydim. and yet the little demon is terrorized by the goyishe demons in the towns nearby. it's the way that they have always been here. the way that Shtetl grew up around them. it's the way that they care about the little villagers.

it's that feeling of someone taking us by the hand and saying, "yes. i know. i see you. these are our stories".

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

"Epistolary" is available to read here

[snowviolettwhite]

Final bought the two Jewish book recommended to me, "Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice" and "It's A Mitzvah! : Step-By-Step To Jewish Living". It is kind of annoying because my local library does not have them and they are not sold in bookstores. I have the PDFs downloaded but reading big files can be difficult more me plus I like having physical copies and I want to highlight and write in the books. Should get them in the mail sometime next week or hopefully later this week.

---

Plus, I really want to learn about my history and start writing my science fiction Jewish film script.

[zahut]

“Everything I have learned about faith in a lifetime tells me that the science of creation—cosmology—wondrous though it is, takes second place to the sheer wonder that God could take this risk of creating a creature with the freedom to disobey him and wreck his world. There is no faith humans can have in God equal to the faith God must have had in humankind to place us here as guardians of the vastnesss and splendour of the universe. We exist because of God’s faith in us. That is why I see in the faces of those I meet a trace of God’s love that lifts me to try and love a little as God loves. I know of nothing with greater power to lift us beyond ourselves and to perform acts that carry within them a signal of transcendence. God lives wherever we open our eyes to his radiance, our hearts to his transforming love.”

— Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Z”L, The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning  

[jewelleria]

“goy” is not a slur.

goy is the hebrew word for “nation.” it’s a neutral term that can have both positive and negative connotations. it simply means non-jewish; as in all the other nations (goyim) that are not the jews. (in general, non-jews who are offended by being called a goy are usually also offended by jews who, for lack of a better word, live jewishly.)

yes, there are some ultra-religious jewish communities who feel negatively about “non-jewish ways of thinking”—and that mentality is the real issue, not the word. the word is in no way a slur, as it doesn’t meet the technical requirements for it. the venn diagram of people who are offended by goy and those who think “jew” (as opposed to “jewish person”) is a negative term is basically a circle.

[saintmelangell]

Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (trans. Benjamin Moser)

[icereader12]

Hey Jumblr,

Trying to submit a character from a.book to a tournament poll. I got the book from PJ library years ago, so maybe someone remembers the title? It had a white cover and was set in supposedly medical Europe but the king was Louis 14, who was a kid at the time. Main characters were a Jewish boy who could heal, a peasant girl who saw the future, and a really tall black boy who had super strength. They had a dog named st. Gertrude. Anyone remember this book?

[trying-to-jew]

Guess what came in the mail last night!!!

EEEEEEK!! I’m so excited it’s here!

[stanestreet]

Strulovitch looked long into his guest’s fierce, melancholy eyes. His own were undistinguished, a pearly, uncertain grey, the colour of the North Sea on a blustery day. Shylock’s were deep ponds of pitted umber, like old oil paint that had somehow – not by restoration, more by inadvertent rubbing – regained its sheen. They were dark with that Rembrandtian darkness that holds light. Ironic that when Strulovitch looked into them he felt as though he were in the crypt of a church. We are not the slightest bit alike, he thought, except in what we feel for our daughters. So what was it Gentiles saw that told them they were both Jews?

Shylock knew, from the intensity of Strulovitch’s scrutiny, what he was thinking. ‘No we aren’t remotely alike,’ he said. ‘Not in appearance nor in the manner we have lived our lives. You don’t keep a kosher house, you don’t attend synagogue and I’m prepared to wager you don’t speak a word of Hebrew. So what does it mean to say we are both Jewish?’

‘I’m more interested in what it means to them. What do they see that unites us?’

‘Something older than themselves,’ he said.

Howard Jacobson, Shylock Is My Name (2016)