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Jewish Wild West Women
Rebecca Cohen Mayer was born to German-Jewish immigrants in 1837 and raised in Mexico and Texas. When she was 15 years old, she married a man twice her age and set off on the Santa Fe Trail. In a...
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Jews and Coffee
The new book Jews Welcome Coffee is a history of the introduction of coffee into Europe–first brought into Germany by botanist Leonhard Rauwolf in 1573–and of the beverage’s strange and remarkable...
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Health, Death, and Our Kids
“What’s the difference between a doctor and God?” a cabdriver asks author A.J. Jacobs, while driving to see Jacobs’ grandfather in the hospital. When Jacobs doesn’t know, the cabdriver supplies the...
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Life (and Music) after Death
Is listening to music a religious experience? The autobiographical book Automatic: Girls, Death, and R.E.M., by Matthue Roth–who you might also know as the founder of Jewniverse–is about music, but...
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Treasure Hunt in Prague
In the late 1500s, Prague was a cultural hotspot. The reigning monarch of the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor Rudolf II, was a patron of the arts and humanities, including scholars, sculptors, and mystics....
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The Jewish Mail Order Bride
These days, mail-order brides mostly reside in your spam folder, but in the 1800s, it was a booming industry in the American frontier, and an easy way for women to make it to the New World. And some...
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In Grandpa’s House
Maurice Sendak illustrated over a hundred books, both his own stories and those written by others. The illustrated book In Grandpa’s House might be his most personal illustration project–the author of...
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Up the Down Staircase
In 1923, a 12-year-old Russian girl named Belle Kaufman immigrated with her parents to America and, not knowing a word of English, was enrolled in the first grade. She caught up quickly, and decided...
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One Book, Two Holocaust Novels
The next great Jewish novel is coming from the heart of Germany. The Canvas, by Berlin-born Benjamin Stein, is a mystery novel with an innovative form: It’s actually two books in one. Start from one...
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Dream of Scipio
When you think of Provence you probably think of the region’s famous French scenery and wine. But when novelist Iain Pears thinks of Provence he thinks of its deep—and often dark—history. His 2002...
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Fagin the Jew
The antihero of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist is the ”villainous-looking and sinister” Jewish moneylender, Fagin. Fagin is referred to as “the Jew” 257 times throughout the first two-thirds of the...
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David Rakoff: Half Full, in Our Book
Long and proud is the Jewish tradition of using sharp humor in the face of hopeless tragedy. David Rakoff – humorist, essayist, and self-described “mega Jewish writer” – was a master of this tactic....
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Bad Israeli Blood in a Holy Spanish City
In master novelist A.B. Yehoshua’s most recent book, The Retrospective (published in Israel in 2011), Yair Moses, an aging Israeli film director, arrives in the holy city of Santiago de Compostela for...
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Good News: All-of-a-Kind Family is Back!
All-of-a-Kind Family, the mid-century classic Sydney Taylor children’s series of Lower East Side literature, is back! And not in an “Oh how awful, they tarted up 80′s kid favorite Strawberry Shortcake”...
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Jewniverse Beach Reading!
Check back all week for our top summer reading picks from the archives! Monday’s pick: Shakespeare The Spy, a novel about an Israeli spy named Shakespeare by Joshua Sobol. Nothing else like this....
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The Infamous 1970s Sex Novel Featuring Lilith’s Kin
What modern lovers refer to as “casual sex” was, at one time, known by a very different, very transgressive name. In 1973, Jewish American writer Erica Jong infamously published Fear of Flying, a...
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Jews vs. Aliens / Jews vs. Zombies
Q: What happens when a rebbe goes shopping for lemons and comes face to face with an alien invasion? A: He learns deep humility and makes sure to leave a good tip. A few weeks ago, two e-book...
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Meet the Jewish Bubbe Who Happens to Be a Literary Genius
It’s a beautiful thing when a writer gets discovered. Especially when the writer is a Jewish grandmother in her seventies who has spent a lifetime mastering the art of the short story—an effort for...
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One Book, Two Holocaust Novels
The next great Jewish novel is coming from the heart of Germany. The Canvas, by Berlin-born Benjamin Stein, is a mystery novel with an innovative form: It’s actually two books in one. Start from one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dream of Scipio
When you think of Provence you probably think of the region’s famous French scenery and wine. But when novelist Iain Pears thinks of Provence he thinks of its deep—and often dark—history. His 2002...
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