Category: Miscellaneous

Silicon Wadi: interview with Israeli author Noga Niv

The Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2008

For Hebrew readers who would like a glimpse at what life is like for Israelis in America, Noga Niv’s debut novel, Story from the Bubble, will make for a round look into their experiences. This character-driven story focuses on five Israeli women who have gathered for a weekend in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains to say farewell to one of their group, Gabi, who is moving back to Israel with her husband. While Gabi is eager to return home, her husband is still coming to terms with the upcoming change.

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Past into the present: review of Joseph Olshan’s novel The Conversion

The Jerusalem Post, August 29, 2008

Acclaimed author Joseph Olshan asserts his literary prowess once again with his latest novel, The Conversion. Hypnotic prose, several layers of intrigue, and a heady Old World setting harmonize to create a melodious, and immensely enjoyable, story. But The Conversion is more than a pleasurable read – Olshan addresses compelling themes such as religious identity, homosexuality and Europe’s current struggle to deal with an influx of immigrants from Muslim countries, deftly handling these potentially incendiary topics with thought and sensitivity.

This fast-paced read opens with a short and attention-grabbing first chapter. Russell Todaro, a struggling young writer, and his companion, Edward Cannon, an accomplished older poet, are surprised by intruders in their Paris hotel room. Edward subsequently dies and Russell is left to puzzle over both the mysterious intruders that led to his death and the unfinished autobiography he left behind.

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Honor thy mother: review of Alyse Myers’s memoir Who Do You Think You Are?

The Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2008

Formerly fodder for the psychoanalyst’s couch, memoirs recounting the abuses one has suffered at the hands of one’s mother seem to have come into vogue. Alyse Myers’s Who Do You Think You Are? is one of the latest releases in this genre.

The memoir opens with the bold statement “I didn’t like my mother, and I certainly didn’t love her,” immediately giving the reader a sense of the troubled mother-daughter relationship that will follow. The book also begins with a mystery: Myers’s mother has died and she and her two sisters are going through her belongings at her apartment in Queens. Myers spirits away a box belonging to her mother – contents unknown – and returns to her Manhattan apartment and tells her husband she didn’t find anything. “I don’t know why I lied to him,” she recalls. After tucking the still unopened box deep into her closet, Myers says, “I can’t explain why I didn’t open the box that day. And I can’t explain why I didn’t open it until 12 years later. I don’t know what I was afraid of…”

Although the author’s lack of self-awareness and insight are a bit frustrating, the prologue does capture the reader’s attention and piques curiosity about what’s inside both the box and the story surrounding it.

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In the footsteps of Columbus: review of Tony Horwitz’s non-fiction book A Voyage Long and Strange

The Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2008

For many readers, hearing the words “history” and “book” in the same sentence invokes groans and nightmarish memories of high school. Tony Horwitz’s A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World not only changes that, it also irrevocably changes the way you view the New World – past, present, and future. No small tasks, but this is no small author. Horwitz masterfully and gracefully steers us through the annals of early American history and his own travel narrative, keeping us fascinated all the while.

And he even manages to make us laugh along the way.

The prologue begins on a humorous note. Horwitz spends a night in Plymouth while on a road trip, having chosen the Plymouth exit only because he didn’t want to pull off the interstate before a baseball game on the radio ended. The following day he goes to see Plymouth Rock, which he likens to “a fossilized potato.” While at the site, he speaks with a park ranger who observes, “Americans learn about 1492 and 1620 as kids and that’s all they remember as adults… The rest of the story is blank.”

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“You are a Jew?”

The Jerusalem Post, June 13, 2008

The Jerusalem Post- International Edition, July 11, 2008

One wrong turn and I am standing alone in an alley in Marrakech, deep inside the medina, the dusty red wall of Palais de la Bahia on one side of me, a row of closed stores to the other.

“You are looking for the mellah?” a young Arab man asks me.

The swastika I saw spray-painted on a wall in Rabat flashes through my mind, and I hesitate to answer, wondering if it’s wise to admit that I am indeed looking for the mellah, the Jewish quarter.

“No, I’m OK,” I reply, puzzling over the map in the Lonely Planet guidebook. According to the map, the mellah should be right here, I should be standing right next to it. But all I see on the empty street is shuttered doors punctuated by a handful of open stalls, bored men sitting in the entryways.

The young man – dressed in a crisp, white polo shirt, a navy blue Nike baseball cap, navy blue Adidas warm-up pants and clean black Nikes – persists. “You are a Jew?” he asks.

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Meeting God in the middle

The Jerusalem Post, June 6, 2008

Say the words “secular yeshiva” to most Israelis and they’ll scratch their heads. A secular yeshiva? What does that mean? The words shouldn’t appear so close to each other in a sentence. Maybe they shouldn’t be in the same sentence at all.

And yet, a secular yeshiva exists.

Adjacent to the Central Bus Station in south Tel Aviv sits a small, nondescript building, unremarkable in this area of bland buildings, save for its warm golden-peachy hue. But this building is truly remarkable… it is Bina’s Secular Yeshiva, the first institution of its kind in Israel.

Bina, which means “wisdom” in Hebrew, is an organization that seeks to breathe new life into Jewish identity at the very time that identity seems to be struggling for air. Bina hopes to bring together the many pieces of Israeli society by using Jewish texts and values as the uniting element. Furthermore, Bina recognizes that many young Israelis are completely alienated from Judaism – making up a large fragment of Israeli society that is deeply fissured from its Jewish roots – and seeks to help repair this rift through education and social action. The Secular Yeshiva, and its location in south Tel Aviv, is a vital component of Bina’s work.

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Interview with Susanna Sonnenberg

The Southeast Review Online, Spring 2008

Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times said of Susanna Sonnenberg‘s memoir: “Writing in sharp, crystalline prose, Ms. Sonnenberg… plung(es) readers into a sort of perpetual present tense in which we are made to experience, almost firsthand, the inexplicable and perverse behavior of an impossible woman from the point of view of her aghast, bedazzled—and immensely gifted—daughter.” In this interview, she talks candidly about the difficult process of crafting this startling memoir.

Q: You mention in the preface “(t)his is… subject to the imperfections of memory.” I think that the relationship between writing and memory is a dynamic, fluid process. So, I’m interested in what happened as you wrote this memoir… did your recollection of the events evolve or shift due to the act of committing them to paper?

Art gives you control. That’s part of why we make art, I think, so that we can hold and shape and come to terms with something that has had control over us.

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Breathing room: review of Susanna Sonnenberg’s memoir Her Last Death

The Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2008

Susanna Sonnenberg’s mother hovers between life and death after a car accident in Barbados. Sonnenberg decides not to sit vigil by her mother’s bedside. In a starkly honest voice she tells the reader, “I’m afraid my mother will die. I’m afraid she won’t.”

The reader is left with a simple question: why? The not-so-simple answer is what follows in this gripping memoir. A New York Times and Los Angeles Times best-seller, Her Last Death is Sonnenberg’s debut, which is almost hard to believe as she handles the difficult subject matter with such aplomb. In crisp prose and using precise and vivid details, she tells the story of the nightmare she has been unable to escape for much of her life – her megalomaniac mother.

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A history repeated

The Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2008

In the run-down Shapira neighborhood, near the Central Bus Station in south Tel Aviv, the sounds of a drum circle – comprised of Israelis and African refugees – ring through the air as the sun eases itself down in the sky. Row after row of tables flanked with white tablecloths, matza, non-alcoholic wine, and sprigs of fresh flowers await the guests who trickle in. Freshly-printed haggadot entitled “From Slavery to Freedom: Passover Joint Seder for Israelis and African Refugees in Israel” in Hebrew, English, French, and Arabic will be distributed once the chairs are full. Volunteers from Israel and the Diaspora hurry to make the final preparations for the some 250 refugees who are expected to attend. The seder will begin soon.

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