Note: This article references a blog that My Jewish Learning once hosted for the Jewish Book Council, called The People of the Book. That blog is no longer active.
Jewish literature is deep into a renaissance. Jewish books and Jewish authors are no longer ethnic tokens on a larger bookshelf, but are establishing themselves in their own right, from the critical success of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union to the already-canonical Everything Is Illuminated. Contemporary Jewish authors are telling new and mind-blowing stories, earning praise from critics and readers–both among Jewish and general audiences–and breaking down the walls of what constitutes a “Jewish book.”
MyJewishLearning and the Jewish Book Council would like to introduce you to some of these authors.
Every other week, we bring you voices from the new Jewish literary scene. They are as diverse as the term itself: fiction and nonfiction, deathly funny and deathly serious, politics and music, poetry and pirates. Some writers share personal stories about writing their books. Others share B-sides and DVD-style extras. Still others blog about their lives, or current events. The only things that our bloggers have in common are that they all take Judaism in their own direction…and they all spark the dynamite of our imaginations.
Eliyahu Alpern | Sukkot Treasure Hunt
Allison Amend | Stations West
Maggie Anton | Rashi’s Daughters
Melissa Broder | When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother: Poems
Joshua Braff | Peep Show
Joel Chasnoff | The 188th Crybaby Brigade
Joshua Cohen | Witz
Anita Diamant | Day after Night {Articles on MJL}
Ellen Frankel | The JPS Children’s Bible
Assaf Gavron | The Outpost and Almost Dead
Goldie Goldbloom | Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders
Niles Goldstein | The Challenge of the Soul: A Guide for the Spiritual Warrior
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein | 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction {Articles on MJL}
Allegra Goodman | The Cookbook Collector
Michael Idov | Ground Up
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer | Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us about Building Vibrant Jewish Communities
Adam Langer | The Thieves of Manhattan
Miriam Libicki | jobnik!: One Girl’s Adventures in the Israeli Army
Charles London | Far from Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community
Benjamin Moser | Why the World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector
Micol Ostow | author, So Punk Rock (and Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother)
David Ostow | comic artist, So Punk Rock (and Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother)
David Plotz | The Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible
Joanna Smith Rakoff | A Fortunate Age
Seth Rogovoy | Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet
David Rosenberg | A Literary Bible and An Educated Man
Nora L. Rubel | Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American Imagination
Dani Shapiro | Devotion: A Memoir
Abby Sher | Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Praying (among Other Things)
Rachel Shukert | Everything is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour
Jennifer Traig | Well Enough Alone: A Cultural History of My Hypochondria
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